Sometimes, you spend a long time in darkness.

Sometimes, you never get out.

Sometimes, you just can’t hope anymore.

Sometimes, pain can feel so deep that it’s impossible to imagine any other feeling.

Sometimes, you find ourselves lost in a fire we never meant to start.

Sometimes, it feels like even if you get out, you will be left with scars that we will never fully heal.

And sometimes you worry that we will always want to go back to the flames, even if it was mottling our skin, eating away at our flesh and twisting our mind beyond total repair.

It’s been so hard to feel anything other than hopeless for so long. The feeling of exhaustion from fighting against it has left me feeling like a standing house that’s been hollowed out by termites, the entire thing about to collapse at any minute.

But sometimes,

sometimes, things can feel okay again.

Sometimes, you see someone that, several years before, you spent night after night wishing you would forget, and it doesn’t hurt at all.

Sometimes, time can evolve sadness without us even realizing.

Sometimes, you see an old friend, and realize that this time when you spoke about your life, you only had good things to say.

Sometimes, you find yourself smiling in the car when you’re alone, like all the people you usually mock.

Sometimes, you realize your criticism was from a place of envy and longing, not from a place of judgement.

Sometimes, your sitting around the table with your family for dinner, and you realize you are laughing again.

Sometimes, you realize when you’re in bed at 10 pm and falling asleep, that you’re actually okay with it.

Sometimes you stop being afraid of the night because you’ve stopped being afraid of waking up.

I know I will always have ups and downs. I know they will be higher and lower than some people experience.

I know it might not always be okay.

But it’s okay right now. And I really wasn’t sure it was going to be.

I just needed to write this down.

Because sometimes you really don’t get out, but sometimes you do.

And sometimes, most times, I forget that.

I’ve changed a lot recently.

Maybe that will change too.