The Realities of Life

When possible, I try to have a cheery disposition and outlook on life. Granted those times seem to be much fewer and farther between, I still cling to the hope that I’ll reach the next summit, that the day-to-day of life won’t keep me down. And while I have a bit of a handicap, severe depression, I do try to celebrate life’s little daily wins as a way of keeping many of my woes at bay. It’s difficult, life’s difficult. Today was one of those rare days where I was so depressed that it physically hurt to breathe.

I recently found myself thinking about the past. I’m guilty of looking more backward than I do forward. This makes the present a very sad place to be. The past cannot be changed while the future has yet to unfold. However, when I revisit the past I frame and reframe the narrative, like a book shelving and re-shelving frequently taking it down to review again. To that end, there is some comfort in even the miseries of the past. It’s a fixed point in time that you know you can’t change but that you can run what-if scenarios and reanalyze what happened and how you should have handled or even avoided the situation.

I’m trying to be better about not having regrets. Actually, I’m trying to not continually beat myself up over being too kind, naive, and stupid. One situation, in particular, has been an albatross and is the singular example of things I regret and would change. I can’t put it out of my mind or get past or over it. It’s like a scab that somehow isn’t able to heal because of how invested you were and had hoped to be. The letdown, the acceptance, the filing away is more difficult. Your sane mind knows that you shouldn’t spend the time or the energy thinking and replaying it while the parts of you that believe anything can be salvaged are at odds. Adulting can be such a pain and in this case, it can make the day-to-day unbearable. Letting go feels impossible, forgetting unsurmountable.

I’m not the person that I was a year ago and when I look in the mirror the reflection is becoming more unrecognizable. I push through each day, sometimes barely keeping it together. Each moment is both a struggle and a win.