“Would they be cheered by their recovery, or marked for life by their trauma?”

-Dan Wells, Ruins

Sometimes I dwell on the negatives. Sometimes I dwell on the past. Sometimes I enlarge my every mistake until they are all I can see. I become a mistake. A walking, breathing example of doing nothing right. Sometimes I think about the dark times, I think about being controlled by illness. And I remember those times fondly, like the only time that I felt okay with myself. There are no expectations in the dark, I can simply be myself. Here I can live alone. I can be blind to the rest of the world, and rot away silently.

Over the years I have often been in a very negative headspace. Dark pathways have been carved throughout my brain, and my mind often comes back to those pathways because they are familiar. Suicidal thoughts have been part of my existence for a long time now, a constant companion. Living with dark thoughts is not so scary anymore, it is just part of life. As I have learned to better deal with them, they are not so present in my consciousness. But they are still there, and sometimes I fall back to them.

I don’t want to forget the dark side of my mind. It is part of who I am. It adds much more depth to my thinking and supplies much of my shadowy creativity. But here I must walk a fine line. It is too easy to let my ill mind take over my whole being. At that point I will lose my perspective, and dive into the waves. Then I will sink. Down. Down. Down. Gone. Gone.

I find myself at a curious point in my life. Stability mixed with precariousness. Peaceful music colliding with dissenting undertones. Enough blessings to write a fairy-tale, and enough calamity to tear it apart. Sometimes I am in the middle of a lot of pushing and pulling. The light and the darkness, both seeking my company. I am trying to find the balance. And I believe that I am improving. Slowly, and unsurely. I live a beautiful life. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.