1.14.21

    There is a certain freedom in taking a breath. I do not always feel as if I inhale. The weight against my ribs can bear down upon me with such heaviness that my lungs seem only to gasp, to struggle, to choke. It limits oxygen to my mind, keeps me from blowing away the fog that shrouds the innards of my cranium. The thickness around my brain keeps me from seeing, casting a film upon my eyes. It keeps me from feeling, numbing the nerves. It keeps me from hearing, filling my ears with the fluids it cannot contain within its body. And when it has made its home in me, the fog strangles my heart, and whispers from the void words and suggestions that I fear may take up my own hands and my own feet and throw me into a pit I cannot climb out of.

    But then I take a breath, fully, deeply, with a certain ease that does not come naturally. The fog retreats, the heaviness gives way. And I can move again. I can feel the sun bake the hairs on my legs as it filters through my living room window. I can smell the scent of bergamot in my brewing tea. I can brush my fingers across the soft fabric of my blankets on a cold January morning. And I am free once more.

    It does not always last, not for days uninterrupted. And yet, after moving into my house, after truly settling into my own place, I have been able to touch, to see, the feel and taste and smell all the world around me without a filter, without a film, without the weight crushing down against my ribs. I smile when I see my house. I smile when I leave. And I smile as I curl up on my couch in those cold mornings, knowing that while the feeling may not last forever, that the darkness may once again find a way to grip me within its skeletal fingers, for now, at least, I know I can cherish the prolonged happiness that greets me with with the song of morning birds each time I open my eyes.