When?

              I don't really understand how it can be so easy for people to just get up and leave situations. Or more specifically emotions for that matter... For myself, I know it's a personal struggle to escape emotions that have followed my shadows for years past, and even years to come. I think I'm trying to get better at it, but I wouldn't be able to give you a definite answer on how good I'm doing as far as progress. Regardless, I am doing what I can in order to keep on pushing forward.

              Over the years, I have gotten to meet people who have given me insight on forward progress and healing. Many of them have very good points that make me even step back and think about how I am doing, but none have made me change. For some reason, as the years go by, I can't help but to keep putting myself in a headspace that every year that passes, I am just waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Who will it be? What will it be? When will it ever stop? These aren't necessarily questions that need to be answered, more rhetorical, but that's not the point. Ever since I was just a 10-year-old girl, I seemed to have never gotten a break from these questions. It is almost as if, since then, I have been flooded with mourning and emotional restriction. Death seems to be my family's best friend. Always in the darkness of every family get together, like a lion stalking its prey. Hidden and quiet, then attacks at the most unwanted and unexpected time. Sometimes I would explain it as being in a room with no escape, only certain that something will indeed happen. At that point the question only seems to be "when?".

              When. Asked so quietly yet still heard, every year does not feel like celebrating a new beginning. It feels more like we are soaking in the old, a new ending. Repeated over and over, with the same outcome. Being able to let yourself grieve is one of the most important steps in overcoming something like death. This is something I do not disagree with, but it is something I struggle with. It's seems as though whenever I am just coming over the edge of being okay with a death, I get punched in the stomach with more, as if I wasn't full to begin with. Death coming in and serving another plate like there is not allowed to be any leftovers. There is not allowed to be any leftovers to a meal that is never-ending. Never-ending seems to be the theme of bad things. Once it starts, stopping it is unheard of.

              Imaging waking up free of anxiety and the shadow of my past seems more like a fairytale than a journal entry. I cannot escape what is holding me back, I can only hope for a brighter day after the sun sets, after my emotions are held at their ends. My wish for brighter days seems to get farther and farther as I wish for them. Not because I am not trying, but because more often than not, my ceiling tends to hear my wishes more often than the sky. Sometimes I feel like I cannot get out, and sometimes I feel like I do not want to leave. These feelings are things I try to avoid, because if I want to stay, I am only letting myself drown in the darkness. If I feel like I cannot get out, I resort to feeling trapped, worse than if I didn't want to leave. These are not solutions to the past. I don't think I have been able to stay in a feeling that made me forget about my past for too long. It feels like a class period, there is no doubt that you were there, but they only last so long before you have to leave. You cannot sit in an empty classroom waiting to learn if there is no teacher. If you are the only one there, you are still alone. Being alone only makes things worse. It creates a quiet and unwanted emptiness. Suddenly your classroom that was supposed to be your safety is now turning into your nightmare.

              When you can't escape your nightmare, it is the same as being in a room with no escape. This is where it starts to make a full circle. Being in the room with no escape, only certain that something will indeed happen. At that point the question only seems to be "when?".