Mar 2020
I found the strange ones, the quirky, the broken. I never thought of myself as any of those things, but maybe I found them because some small part of me knew even then that I was broken, too.
I still think about her. In the strangest moments, my favorite memories pop into my head. Certain smells, certain emotions, certain songs, they all put me right back there. In the ignorant bliss of my youth. Racing across the movie theater parking lot in the pouring rain, because Mom always said that rainy days were the best for movies. Walking down the marble halls of the Science Museum, looking at geodes in the black-lit display cases. Watching the pendulum swing and learning about gravity, that force that makes the world turn and aligns the planets. The very same that couldn't keep her mind here on earth with the rest of us. The same that keeps this ******* sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. Her voice reading me to sleep, the smell of Estee Lauder perfume wrapping around my small body every time I got sad or frustrated. Her hand rubbing my back when the monsters crept their way down the hall or out of my closet and I couldn't sleep. Placing a cool rag on the back of my neck when I was sick. But it's that smell of rain that gets me every time. We're right back there running through the parking lot. Or maybe we're sitting in the living room watching the storm pass, feeling it shake the house. It was my favorite smell until recently. It smells like grey and like your soul's lifting right out of your body and up into the dewy air and it is total peace. Rain is the smell that makes the world okay. The water droplets racing along the windows of the car.
Mental Illness doesn't come crashing over you like guilt does, in those cold, salty tear-drenched waves. It's slow. Like if someone were to take an eye dropper and add ink to blood. It's dark the way blood is so you don't even realize it's there at first. By the time it catches up to you, by the time it's noticeable, your whole ******* system has been infiltrated with inky blood, choking out the oxygen or the happiness or whatever is in there that makes you who you are.
I still think about her. In the strangest moments, my favorite memories pop into my head. Certain smells, certain emotions, certain songs, they all put me right back there. In the ignorant bliss of my youth. Racing across the movie theater parking lot in the pouring rain, because Mom always said that rainy days were the best for movies. Walking down the marble halls of the Science Museum, looking at geodes in the black-lit display cases. Watching the pendulum swing and learning about gravity, that force that makes the world turn and aligns the planets. The very same that couldn't keep her mind here on earth with the rest of us. The same that keeps this ******* sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. Her voice reading me to sleep, the smell of Estee Lauder perfume wrapping around my small body every time I got sad or frustrated. Her hand rubbing my back when the monsters crept their way down the hall or out of my closet and I couldn't sleep. Placing a cool rag on the back of my neck when I was sick. But it's that smell of rain that gets me every time. We're right back there running through the parking lot. Or maybe we're sitting in the living room watching the storm pass, feeling it shake the house. It was my favorite smell until recently. It smells like grey and like your soul's lifting right out of your body and up into the dewy air and it is total peace. Rain is the smell that makes the world okay. The water droplets racing along the windows of the car.
Mental Illness doesn't come crashing over you like guilt does, in those cold, salty tear-drenched waves. It's slow. Like if someone were to take an eye dropper and add ink to blood. It's dark the way blood is so you don't even realize it's there at first. By the time it catches up to you, by the time it's noticeable, your whole ******* system has been infiltrated with inky blood, choking out the oxygen or the happiness or whatever is in there that makes you who you are.
