I’ve only recently realized I’m still drowning.
I used to live in a season where my environment was so big, so noisy, so relentless, that the only choice I had to survive it all was to cram myself smaller and smaller. Minimal, numb.
For three full years of overwork and isolation, I still felt strongly it wasn’t time to go home, and I refused to give up. Attempts at breaking isolation fizzled, one after the other.
Too tired.
Too scared.
Too busy.
Catching my breath in that place was impossible, but I tried. Choking and gasping, drowning but not quite dead.
When I finally escaped and had a chance to move on, I threw myself into trying, needing to be okay. But real life set me on a treadmill that is still a little too fast. A voice in my head tells me over and over that I don’t get to rest; I will never get it right, and the stakes are too high.
I feel like I can’t breathe again. I can’t fail, I can’t go back there.
But somehow, I already have.
Somewhere deep in my bones, I never really left.
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A/N: Thoughts from quarantine. This whole situation has dug up things I had preferred to bury as deep as possible, but finally (grudgingly) allowing it to have a name has been helpful.
Odonata 