It's dark, not just in the corners where the light struggles to reach, not just in the covens and caves where there is not source of light, nor in the places where the light bulb is broken. Its dark, and it's dull, and I can't see where I'm going. Even when the bulb is shining brightly above my head, or when the flame of a candle, though struggled to keep alight, still flickers, there is no light. It's pitches black.
I hold out my arms, my fingertips feeling around for the door labelled 'purpose', written in bold handwriting on the wood, or maybe even the door that was labelled 'hope' or 'reasons', yet I'd been searching for hours in the darkness until I was physically drained and weak beyond belief, and still nothing except an endless abyss. I'd heard rumours about these doors, once they were opened I would no longer feel tired, or sad, or hopeless, and that light that was vacant from the black came back again, defeating the noire, allowing me to see forward again. I heard rumours that they gave you what was written on them, giving you a purpose to be, or a hope for the future, and countless reasons to keep going, but I couldn't find them; I'd been searched for as long as I can remember.
This darkness, this black hole, is also known as my mind. Many others people's minds are filled with colour, decorated with their favourite memories and possessions, the duller ones silenced from those which bring joy. Some peoples are a little more barren, but they can still find their way, and some peoples are just blank, yet that lightbulb still illuminates the room just enough. However my mind differs from that: there is no colour, no happiness to look at, no possessions that remind me how thankful I am to be here, however I hear those darker thoughts defeat those bringing smiles and laughter, pushing it down like a bully until there were gone altogether. Those darker thoughts made it dark in here, those powerful insults and those believable lies is what made the flame dim and made the light dark, and yet it's stopping me from finding those doors I urgently needed to find. It told me, 'you could end things now, you would no longer be tired, you would no longer be sad. you would no longer feel this pain you despise so much'. I hated this voice, I needed to find that door. The door I'd heard so much about that I yearned to pass through.
And then, I felt the doorknob in my palm, the cold metal against my skin. I heard the voices on the other side, telling me it's okay, and that things will get better. They promised to help bring the light back into this dark hollow of my mind, they promised that there is a better way to get rid of this pain. They told me open the door, let the bleakness out, and they reminded me how lucky I am to be alive and what I have to look forward to in my life. They agreed I'd had a troubling past, difficulties that they couldn't even imagine, yet I trusted them when they said they'll help me manage, and I trusted their voices when they told me how beautiful my mind was to become, filled with colour and light and bubbles of happiness from memories and thoughts.
So, I opened that door, to find it was a combination of all. 'Hope', 'Purpose', 'Reason' was all there on the other side, and more I was so thankful to see. Sure, I was still tried to begin with, my chest aching and my legs week, however they held me up until I was strong enough again. I'm glad I kept pushing through the exhaustion and the hurt, because this is what I'd been hoping for, and I'm glad I stuck out for this, and I'm so thankful that my life is brighter now, and my mind is a cheerier place.
