I try not to post when my posts will certainly be shrouded in negativity. I try to stay silent and stomach the worst of it on my own. I try not to burden others with the incessant failures and fissures in my life. I try to avoid the constant bad news. I do find myself reaching out to a select group of strong friends who, I am thankful, have not forsaken me despite the constant shit storm I seem to spread everywhere I go.

I try to balance my vast and dark negativity with optimistic hopes and a fervent belief that it will all be ok. I don’t really have any of that right now. I can’t think of anything nice to say and I have no words to describe my current mental, emotional and physical state. So I will simply describe my present moment and you can use your imagination to fill in whatever you think might be wrong with me tonight.

I am sitting in a King Soopers parking lot paralyzed by the events of the day. While I was in the grocery store, listlessly wandering because I failed to think of anywhere better to go, I saw a little girl riding one of those penny horses they have by the exit. She had long dark hair and a contagious smile. With each rock of the horse she squealed with joy, smiling at every passerby, as if daring them to find as much joy as she had in that moment. Even I, in my crotchety, hopeless and devastated state smiled with her, wanting her to live in that joy as long as possible. As she smiled so fully I tried to conjure the last time I felt joy like that. I couldn’t think of anything. Not that my life doesn’t have beautiful joyous moments but all my conversations even with those who are the most wonderful, are peppered by the perils of my recent past and my vulnerability and raw and ragged and in everyone’s face. And I perform. I perform joy as though it is ingrained into the fabric of my being. I joke and strive to bring others forward in their journey through laughter. I just am so devastatingly heartbroken right now.

I thought the worst news I would get this week is that I was in fact right about my spinal fluid. I have a CSF leak and I am once again facing a path that only ends in brain surgery. I did get that news and it wasn’t super fun to hear but there was a certain comfort in knowing. 

It’s not in and of itself horrible news. I mean at least I was right. I don’t feel right very often anymore so maybe I will take my doomed CSF leak as a win.

And today, I started out thinking today I will be productive, I will matter. I won’t wallow in my depression, I will reclaim the scraps of the person I thought I was and the woman I can’t recognize anymore and I will work and I will feel close to important in my performance of wellness. 

That’s when I got a message and took a call that changed how I see my present world. Nobody died, so don’t let your imagination get too far away from you. I won’t give the details because it’s not just about me but suffice it to say it was a call that broke what was left of my fractured heart. It was a call that shattered my fragile reality. 

I have always been intensely honest and vulnerable in my interpersonal interactions and generally, it has served me well. But today? It made me seem weak, it made me feel helpless. I was lucky to have some amazing people prop me up in the intervening hours but still the feeling of dread won’t leave me. Maybe in time. If time is a gift I receive in my lifetime, maybe it will help me. 

So here I sit, stuck, dreading my return home. Dreading the moment that the quiet sets in and the complex interactions of various life events takes over. I sit here trying with all my might to conjur joy. It’s hard, in this moment, to remember what joy feels like.

But hey, at least I was right about something this week.

Peace and love,

Samira