The Beauty in Eternity

104 | Sudden Fall.

"But where there's peace and serenity; there's an explosion waiting to happen."

Amara's POV:

Everything is okay. After a journey of pain, fighting and hopelessness. After exerting yourself to things you never should. After a long, and tiresome battle. Everything is okay. And it is exactly then, that the world comes crashing down.

Being afraid of happiness is a real thing. Not the happiness itself, but what will replace it when it's gone. Fear of being happy, especially common for those with anxious attachment styles, abandonment issues or previous trauma; rewriting the neural pathways in the brain to rather register happiness as something that should be partnered with anticipation and sheepishness, due to the reality of what usually comes after—disappointment, or pain.

Terminal Lucidity. Rallying. The surge. All terms used in the medical field among professionals to describe the mask of health a patient exhibits before they ultimately deteriorate. The mental or physical clarity that they regain before their death. The period of time where things seem okay, and you begin to believe that after all—maybe you can breathe. Maybe, just maybe... everything is okay.

Until suddenly, it isn't.

So what is it called when this happens outside of the hospital? When there is no patient, with a chart and a diagnosis to analyse. No name, symptoms or vitals.
I don't have an answer to that question.
So what do you call the fast decline in a person, or relationship, when there is no physical explanation? When there is no numbers to crunch, or forms to sign. When there is only two people, fighting against an ocean whose waves are relentless and stronger than them both.

Because there is no way to tell that you are in the highs, until the lows sweep you off of your feet; knocking the rose tinted glasses from your eyes as you crash to the ground. And consequently, there is no way to tell whether you are in the surge until the rapid decline hits, until the bad comes along and you question whether the good was ever good at all, or just a symptom of your impending incompatibility.

And even when the bad comes along, and each wave hits you like a bullet to the chest, pulling you under until you can't think anymore—how do you know if you'll ever resurface? How do you know if this is just a low, or the soul crushing death of the love you've watched grow for so long.

And when you don't know how to save them, the person you love so much. What then?

I help people every day. I save lives and I mend peoples injuries. I fix the external, and even internal troubles of the patients I see. But I just don't know, I don't know whether I can pull him back this time. When it comes to the pain intrinsic. I don't know whether I can bring him up for air long enough to save him, without drowning myself. And when it gets to that point; where you have to choose between saving the person you love from their darkness, and letting your own swallow you whole in the process—how are you ever supposed to know?

Is this just a bump in our road, or is this the aftermath of our surge?

—————

(April 30th.)

"You look nervous... relax. This isn't your first time in this chair." she smiles warmly.

She's right, I'm no stranger to therapy—I just didn't expect to see myself in this room again any time soon. It's just a catch up appointment, a follow on, I have nothing to worry about.

"So, how have things been? How are they? You seem to have a lot to catch me up on." she chuckles, making me feel at ease.

"Things are good, they're really good," I begin. "Mason is... well, alive. And he's doing great, we are doing great. It's a long story, and it took a lot of time to get where we are now... but we got there. My mom isn't in rehab anymore, my friends are happy, I'm doing well in my job."