Ramble on Being Sunshine

I had a strange moment last night.

Moments like this stop my clock. I feel infinity pass within them.

It was late at night and I was in bed, gazing through my window at the stars. I was being kept awake by worries of what I can't control, replaying the day, analyzing my mistakes. 

A thought passed through my mind--as they often do--and caught me by surprise.

I'm glad to be alive.

I'm glad I didn't kill myself when I had the opportunity. I'm glad I didn't starve my body beyond repair and I'm glad I was resilient enough to survive it.

When I entered treatment almost six months ago, I was full of new hope. I had seen something in my life as I disappeared, something I didn't have and something I wanted. Some spark, somewhere.

In my return from treatment, I've re-discovered my life. I've re-connected with people and with passions that seem to have made all the difference: though my depression has by no means gone away, these people, these things are able to lift the cloud, at least slightly. That's the spark. That's what I was missing. And I'm realizing I love it.

One of my favorite authors, Sir Terry Pratchett, once wrote that a man isn't dead so long as his name is still spoken. Sometimes I feel silly for loving what I do--I revel in words of people so long gone you may as well dust their names before speaking them lest you choke on their cobwebs--but then I remember that these people live on through me, and I live for them. I live for that moment a verb form means more than it translates to. I live for the poetry of rhetoric and the sharp elegance of poetry. I live for this and I will cling to this with all I have for as long as I live.

My heart is lightened, my pulse quickens, my breath catches. I am reminded what it means to be alive and what it is to truly live; for me often the two things are separated. Often, alive, I simply existed, floating through the world and hoping to someday amount to something. But this infatuation of mine, what's kept me going for years now, a thread to cling to, is something to do more than merely float for. Instead of bobbing through the ocean aimlessly, I began to swim. Maybe there's a purpose to all of this.

Likewise there are people in this world I'm glad to have had the opportunity to meet, people so full of light and kindness and passion it's contagious, people who the struggle is worth it for. I've been lucky to know many of them, enough to surround myself with them and keep myself grounded. I cannot express how fortunate I am. They're my sunshine people.

The thought hasn't stuck around. I know I won't feel that way often, at least not yet. But I think I can hang on until I do. Sometimes people, some experiences, some things are worth living for.