I didn’t know I was lost

The last few weeks I thought I was going crazy.

Not the good kind of crazy. The crazy that’s got crazy eyes – the one where you feel anxious all the time, none of the words come out except the mean ones and all the time you’re busy collecting evidence and arguing with yourself in your head about what’s true and what’s not. It turns out, in the end, I’m not crazy, and that the undercurrent of uncertainly that’s been driving me crazy was true. And I knew it was true, somewhere deep inside me, but I didn’t want it be true so badly I just keep trying to tell myself it was just that I was crazy. So I’m not crazy, but now it’s true I don’t know what to do with it.

I used to be a great pretender, but something happened to me and I’m not anymore. I can’t control the inside or the outside, and I’ve felt like my heart’s been inside out for so long I can’t remember what it felt like the right way round. My hurt is all over me and leaking out of my eyes, and even when I want to I can’t seem to breathe.

This morning I woke up and it wasn’t gone. What it means, what happens next, how I’ll be, if I even remember who I am without him. And another day rolls out in front of me that I don’t want, not the day itself, just the way this day feels.

I went outside this morning and stood in the sun and breathed. I felt the breeze touch my cheeks and the sun stroke me, and I noticed in that moment, if I could stay there, there was nothing to be scared of. Not what lead to it, not what would happen after it, that I was me and I was whole I could be OK. And then it was gone, the present moment and it’s just me, standing in the sun looking for someone. Me. Looking for me. And I didn’t know I was lost.