Lighter

t w e n t y - t h r e e

and this won't be the last time
that i break down and
wanna crawl to b e d . . .

⚡️⚡️⚡️

I've always had a love-hate relationship with spring. On one hand, it resembled a time to blossom into a new person. A time for us to root out from wherever we planted ourselves in the previous colder months and flourish into something bigger and better.

On the other, it was a harsh reminder that with the new season came a time I hated the most.

The anniversary of my mother's death.

It always seemed to come faster every year. Like the rest of the days couldn't go by quick enough. And it was the type of day when winter would finally kiss us goodbye. The sky was no longer gray and the nights weren't so bitter.

I had gone quite some time without having an anxiety attack. The last one I could remember was before my birthday. The familiar, overwhelming sense hit me towards the end of a lecture while I was in class. It was literally for no reason, as it usually is, because anxiety hardly ever needs a reason. So I sat in my car for about twenty minutes after that, and waited for it to end.

Other than that, my anxiety had been laying off of me. Maybe it was because I was keeping myself busy with school, my family, and my evolving relationship with Ronnie for the past couple of months. Either way, it didn't matter. The morning of my mother's death anniversary was my disorder tapping me on the shoulder just when I thought I was in the clear, making sure I knew that it would never truly be gone for good.

It was one of the many nightmares that I've had dozens of times before. We were all well accustomed here in my fucked up head – I knew how each tormenting dream started, played out, and ended, like the back of my hand. Unfortunately, having them over and over again doesn't mean it gets any easier to deal with. If anything, I feel like it makes it that much harder.

When I came out of it and found myself staring at my ceiling, I was in my usual state after experiencing the pain of losing my mother, again. In shambles, barely able to catch my breath, with sweat trickling along the side of my face and tears burning in my eyes.

I had gone to bed wearing Ronnie's sweatshirt – my only source of protection from the night terrors. Even after washing it and replacing Ronnie's scent with whatever detergent my dad bought this month, it still brought me some sort of peace while sleeping. Somehow I had found security in the fleece of a hoodie from a guy I'd only known for a few months. Somehow it worked for me.

But sweatshirt or no sweatshirt, my body could always recognize what day it was. There was no way to avoid it.

You can imagine how unsettled I was after reliving the downright worst night of my life. It took every ounce of strength I had just to sit up in my bed. My heavy eyes were staring in the general direction of my slightly sloppy desk that was against the wall, but they weren't focused on anything. Not even the perky women trying to sell some overpriced, gaudy sweater on the Home Shopping Network that was quietly playing on my TV could distract me from the vivid memories etched in my mind.

It felt like the darkness of my room was swallowing me whole, leaving me with no air to breathe, so I shoved my comforter off and freed myself of the sudden confinement that came over me as I kept sitting there alone. Not bothering to even check the time, I stumbled out of my room and made my way to my dad's room down the hall.