A Place to Start

Content Advisory: Explicit Content containing references to self harm and substance abuse

The spoon softly clatters against the side of the bowl as the writer pushes it across the table. She watches as it rocks back and forth to stillness in the emptied bowl streaked with what little she could not scoop with spoon or soak with bread. She usually hates tomato-based soups. They are just too tomatoey. 

The one exception is a red-pepper gouda soup that always hits the spot. It was her comfort comfort foods that must have come out of some coffeehouse cookbook because it tasted the same in a different joint three years and 600 miles away.

Brushing the last of the bread crumbs from the table, the writer tries to wrangle her mind out of the different time and place. She digs into her bag to produce her favorite pen and beat-up spiral notebook that she has not used in a while.

Her creaky chair settles as she sits back and opens the notebook accidentally ripping the cover off. Sighing, she flips through the old scribbles and stops at the first page with room to write.

She stares at old notes and a paragraph that no longer hold meaning. The words stare back at her. Not sure what to do with them, she wishes for a blank page that never comes. 

Her mind wanders while her eyes track up the page, across the table, and find the bowl again.  

Is it weird to have emotional connection soup tied to the bad old days?

Despite her disinterest, the writer’s mind takes her back to the worst days of depression and hangovers. A bowl of red pepper gouda during a lunch break or after a shift or on a day off always offered these strange moments of relief.

The writer's memories don't haunt her as they once did. They aren't as painful, but they still linger. 

They still hurt.

The period was rough. 

Although, it is unfair to say all the days were awful.

There were some lovely days. 

A ping of anxiety twists in the writer's gut thinking about them.

She realizes those good days remain the most painful now as they were the most painful at the time.

While they were the brief moments when the world did not seem so heavy or alienating, they were so fleeting. Every time a good moment ended, it left the writer alone, curled under blankets with doubt and confusion, feeling more weight than before. 

She still beats herself up about those moments. The writer wakes to whispers in the night. Or the voice starts screaming triggered when the day turns mundane and still.

Sometimes blame:

"Why weren't there more good times?"

"What did I do wrong?"

"It was all my fault, I’m sure."

"I didn't deserve more."

Or twisted logic:

"I am the last person anyone would want to be with."

"So many more cool talent folk out there."

Then the lament:

"I squandered the good times by being chemically faded most of the time."

A rush of nerves blurs logic, self-hate, and lament.

"That alcoholic haze totally took me away."

"I pushed so many people away."

"I worked to kill myself slowly."

"Maybe it would have been better if..."

Blame.

Anxiety.

Fear.

Sadness.

The writer sets her pen down.

This reflection was not what she intended to write, but it is where her muse took her. 

She breathes deep, soft, then pauses. She sips air before holding her breath at the top of her inhale. 

She admires the sharp angles and unsure curves of letters that lay shaped on the page. The words came together without a plan shaped by her emotion, intelligence, and imagination.

Sitting on the page is the joy, the pain, and the love she hid for so long. She's dreamt of this moment for so long. 

Through long nights and longer days, she dreamt of this moment.

Now it is here.

Closing the notebook, she lets her breath go with thanks.