Still Burning

Remember: The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit. Be patient. Be humble. Keep moving forward and know that all this hard work you’re putting in day in and day out will produce the results you’ve been waiting for. Your time is coming. Do not give up.

– Anonymous

So here I am, starting my journey and planting the seeds. Right now, all I see is dirt. But I can say that I have started to feel the earth shift slightly.

To say the last few years have been rough would be an understatement. I am someone who has experienced depression and, lately stronger than ever, anxiety. The depression is not new. Honestly, if I really examine my life, I probably started having symptoms of depression as a child. But I also experienced pure joy as a child and through all stages of my life. It is funny how these two can share the same space in a person’s life.

It’s funny how often our greatest rises happen after one of our biggest falls. In a way, one could even say a great fall, or falling apart, is a requirement to achieve a great ascent. Maybe this is why I love phoenixes so much – out of the ashes emerges a new beginning. But you have to burn and crumble first to get there.

I’m still crumbling, but I am trying. I am watering the seeds. I am putting one foot in front of the other. I am deciding that this crumble will be different. This crumble will make for the most triumphant of new beginnings. I know this because I am willing it so.

Part of me is writing this blog to hold myself accountable, to make sure I tend to my growing seeds every day. The other part of me is writing this blog because, no matter how alone and isolated I feel, I know I am not alone. I know there are many others out there feeling the same way. And maybe, just maybe, my words will help you rise from your ashes.

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.

― Frida Kahlo