Saturday, February 6, 2010

Running against the current

Eight years ago I was consumed on a warm, beautiful day in mid-August. I was consumed by pain. We lived on a circular block and I must have walked around it fifteen times trying to rid my body of the pain in my stomach. I felt as though I was poisoned, cursed, doomed to endure this suffering. With tears running down my face and sweat pouring down my back I sat down on the curb and just rocked back and forth for what seemed like hours.

I was taking the bar exam for the second time. I needed to pass it to keep my job. My hopes and dreams were riding on it. I was consumed. I was filled with an anxiety and depression that reached the very depths of my being. Although I was filled with this lethargic sludge, my heart and soul felt empty. I was at a very helpless place in my life.

I don't revisit this place very often, and I don't stay very long when I go there, but it does come and often without warning. It is not a sadness so much as a consumption of misery that is inescapable. It has no exit and no rug to hide under.

I recently took a trip back to this dismal sty only to find that I did have an exit, an escape. I can't explain this blissful exodus, only to say that maybe I've put some internal mechanisms in place to deal with such events; some unconscious survival techniques. I'd just like to thank evolution and mother nature for helping me to deal with myself.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brim over I assent to but I contemplate the brief should acquire more info then it has.

Melissa said...

Isn't it wonderful when we find the means to weather those times? Unfortunately it doesn't alway show up. I'm glad it does for you.