letters to a ghost

10th therapy | friday

Mark Isaiah

It's weird to not have any thing to report to Tal, like everything has been good lately. I haven't slipped in a while, which scares me. Clearly because it's only a matter of time before I fall again, right?

"So Mark-" My attention was pulled back to Tal. A smile spread on his face as he watched me, my hands finding their way into my hair running through it, he continued. "Update me on your life- how has this week been for you?"

Thinking through the week the only noticeable change in my life is that I've been talking to Gracie nonstop since I got her number last Friday.

Should I mention my doubts about my happiness? That I think it's all a sham and any minute now it's gonna crumble back down. Maybe I should.

"Nothing to tell really, I've been talking to Gracie, hanging out with my friends. Life has been great almost too great, I'm starting to worry I have a false sense of security... I feel like it's going to crash down around me, when is it my time to be safe from all this?" I shrugged my shoulders letting my hands fall into my lap, fumbling my thumbs as I waited for him to respond to me.

"Gracie? You too seem to have gotten close recently, I'm glad you're not staying alone anymore though- that use to be a big issue." Pausing he sat the clipboard down in his lap, twirling his hands in the air he tried to find his own words, "This world we live in- this life we live will never be one hundred percent anything Mark." Settling back in his seat, he propped his leg up on his other, "You will never be one hundred percent safe from the memories of your sister, it's impossible. With that being said- you'll never be one hundred percent burdened with them either. Life is on a greyscale, never fully white and never fully dark. I want you understand that you shouldn't be scared of feeling these things. It's normal, it's human. You're human." He smiled and it washed over all my worries and cleansed them from my mind, it was calming. Almost.

I sighed looking to the floor. Trying to take in his words, they sound like a riddle to me, I don't fully understand what he means, but I know he means well with them.

I just have a single question. Something that's always been in the back of my mind, a question that's such a huge "what if" that it stopped me from trying to get better for years.

"What happens if I fall again?" My voice cracked as I looked back up, his smile from earlier hadn't faltered like mine has many times before now.

He leaned forward never breaking eye contact with me. Saying one sentence that I know will stick with me for the rest of my life,

"You will rise again."

No one has ever said that to me before.