I don’t know why I feel compelled to type this on my computer, instead of burying it in the notes app of my phone. Maybe it’s to justify keeping my website up and running, or maybe it’s because I have something worthwhile to say. Who knows?

The springtime sun shines through the window, threatening to overheat my laptop. The same springtime sun that cannot warm the chill in my bones, or melt the ice in my chest.

In a time of fresh starts and new growth, I remain in my chamber of winter. I feel like I’ve been here forever. Like it’s all I’ve ever known. As I sit in the half-light, something floats down from the cobwebs above, softly landing on my shoulder. It lands with a whispered question that reverberates around my head. “Does this feel like home?”

“Does this feel like home?”

For over ten years I’ve been doing this dance. Compiling lived experiences from the times when I was healthy, and the times when I was ill. Along with all of those times in between where it all mixes together. Like the moment when a child steps into a spring puddle with a rubber boot. Do I identify with my illness, or with the other sides of me? I go back and forth, up and down, as if swinging at the park on a sunny April day.

I cannot seem to decide on who I am, who I want to be. So I take the other option, which is to keep on kicking the can down the road until the way becomes clear. But as the years go by the can gets heavy, and the foot gets tired. I wonder if I should explore other treatment avenues than the ones I’ve tried, maybe something to help with all the trauma baggage I’ve picked up along the way. On the other hand, maybe it would be best to let go, to give in to the voices in my head.

I lack the strength to choose the first, and I’m not convinced about the latter. So I switch to my other foot and kick the can again. Down the road, into tomorrow.

Happy Spring.