as time passes

This post deviates from the stylistics of previous posts. I hope y’all enjoy it regardless. 

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We know those scenes in the movies. The ones in which someone paces back and forth—clutching their hair between their fingers; reaching into the air for something, anything, nothing; kicking the ground as if it’ll eventually fight back. A candle burns brightly. A dramatic song plays in the background. Its volume increases until the scene cuts to black. The moment has passed.

In real life, the moment doesn’t pass, not completely.

Moments ago, I realized that I was pacing. I literally had my hands running through my hair. I blew out my happiness candle—an ironic scent for a room full of depression. The scent of smoke lingers—much more fitting. Bruno Major’s “Places We Won’t Walk” has played on repeat for twenty minutes. I’ve clicked up the volume a few times now, in an attempt to drown out the tick-tock-tick-tock muttering of my clock.

How would we know this isn’t a movie scene if I didn’t say?

We would know if I said this isn’t romantic. This frustrating, tearless night at the end of a long, restless day isn’t romantic. The fact that I feel immense, overwhelming guilt—the kind that makes me want to scream—for not going to work today isn’t romantic. The urge to cry battling with the reflex to choke back tears isn’t romantic. The irony of a tear slipping from my right eye as I typed that...that’s a romanticized joke from the universe.

I stayed in bed until nearly 3pm today. I rose a few times prior to stumble either into the bathroom or kitchen. I’m still dehydrated and underfed. At that time, my migraine had subsided to a headache. Manageable. I took a lavender-scented bubble bath. The scent battled with my happiness aromatherapy jar. Yes, the candle whose smoke still lingers is the same scent.

I washed my hair, noting that the shampoo I used smells like pumpkin spice. The nostalgia of fall, and all that I had then, swept over me. I went back to bed after unloading and reloading the dishwasher, emptying the trash, and reading the newspaper.

That’s the most romantic aspect of battling mental illnesses that transform into physical battles: I still take care of the spaces I share with others. How else would they know that, “I’m good, how are you?” said with a smile isn’t a robotic response initiated by the emergency center of my brain—the only part that is always active?

I can hear the sirens now.