Under

Under the bed is a stack of letters that will never be sent. Full of apologies, full of happiness, full of sadness, and full of words I will never say. There’s something refreshing about saying what you need to say without a reaction. All of the anger, confusion, and all of the emotion in one consolidated place.

I remember sitting there and waiting, it was cold. I didn’t think about it at the time and little did I know that this was going to change me. I left there and slept all day, sweating and waking up every few hours. I knew I had to wake up eventually and pull myself together. I told myself I’d never talk about it after that day. At least not until now and that is all I can say about it.

What do you call something that is a curse and a blessing? Something that makes you colder but motivates you every second of every day? Something that changes every root you thought was planted deep inside of your soul? A change people can’t put into words? Something different about yourself that people can’t quite describe.

Things change you. Vicki Harisson once wrote, “grief is like the ocean, it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim”. 

Does this change carry a name? Are these heavy experiences just a weight that we get used to carrying? Does this make us stronger and if it doesn’t break us down, how much more can we add? There’s no answer as to what and how and when and especially not why. We weren’t meant to know everything, all we can do is wait. It’s one of the hardest things in the world – patience.