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Healthy Horizons

Laurie Lupold

Realities

I sit quietly, staring ahead but not really seeing anything. Thoughts race through my mind like dialect from several biographies. I'm numb. I don't know where I'm headed and regret where I've been. Pain rips at my heart and fills me with desperation. I feel vulnerable to life's inconsistencies and that scares me. I'm not quite sure I'm in control of the life I have before me, or whether I can keep a clear mind and live it as progressively as possible when all I really want to do is escape until the air leaves my body.

I don't mean to cause you pain when I say these things or to draw concern or sympathy to my life. The presentation of this column has always been open-hearted and I feel giving my readers something other than what I am feeling or creating at the time is cheating them of what they deserve. This isn't a plea for rescue. My thoughts will remain as such and not be turned into actions but that does not leave them as being any less significant.

Dealing with these mental dysfunctions scares the hell out of me sometimes and the fact that I'm not scared to breathe my last breath makes me question my sanity. Sometimes I feel like I am hanging from a ledge questioning whether I should pull myself up or just let go.

It's hard for me to look at what I've done with my life because it's always been difficult for me to see success in myself. I feel like I have just wasted my life, not offered anything to anyone of any worth or significance. I've had many situations I claimed were failures and have taken responsibility for everything that has been bad in my life whether I was to blame or not. I felt the guilt and accepted it as my shame.

I have timidly walked through the garden of life not wanting to be noticed, for if I was exposed, what would one say? What would they think? Would they tease and belittle me? Would I grow weak in the knees at their presence and reveal myself as a fool? Would my tremors be noticed and used as a source for their amusement? Would my physical appearance matter or could they see beyond?

I continue down this path one day at a time because that's the only way that I'm able to live it. I'm never really sure what life is going to throw at me next. My moods can change in seconds. The anxiety gets so bad sometimes I feel like I am suffocating and at night the panic creeps in now and then to steal my sleep. This isn't the life I bargained for but the life I was given. Though at times I really struggle with it, I find a reason to survive every day. That reason, today, might be you!