Diaries of a Madwoman

June 22, Illinois, USA

I was seventeen a couple of weeks ago, then I woke up and I was twenty six. Chances are that I’m not okay, in fact, chances are I’ll never be okay as I was a few weeks ago. I exist and I will keep existing until life runs out of me, I’m okay with waiting for my day now. I wasn’t in the past, I wanted my day to come faster, but I’m okay with waiting for it now, with the certainty that it will mercifully come.

I haven’t been happy since I was ten years old, I experience happiness like the rain in the city that washes away that persistent cloud of pollution. But the pollution always comes back, because it’s part of the whole ecosystem at this point, the rain just alleviates it for a couple of days. Just like happiness, many things alleviate my constant polluted mind, but the truth of the matter is: I am polluted.

Stress, worry, sadness, fear have been polluting who I am since I was ten years old and I’ll never be that person again. I’ll never be the person I was at eleven, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty one… I’ll never jump without looking down, I’ll never trust without fear, and maybe that’s okay; maybe that’s natural, maybe that’s just growing, we learn that happiness is not life’s constant companion, but a passenger that comes for a couple of seconds, minutes, hours… when we are lucky it sticks around for a few days. But happiness always leaves, and the pollution is always back.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change it if I could. I would hate to be my immature, happy go-to self right now; she couldn’t take the life she dreamed of, she was too soft. Now, my twenty six year old self is used to having dry eyes, coughing, sneezing, and pushing through the pain for a better life for those who depend on me. I gave up that ecstatic happiness I felt as a child to be the warrior I am now, and I’m not gonna change that for anyone.

I fight everyday, clawing and biting like an animal through epic battles, I fight, so my rainy days are that much more beautiful, and meaningful, refreshing, vivid. Once I heard that “God is in the rain” and maybe He is, maybe that’s why when it rains I run outside to cleanse my soul and get ready to fight harder until the next rain.

So, yes and no; I am not okay, but I am okay.