I am a slow learner when it comes to the basic human emotions.  

Cause and effect I get.  

He hurt me.  I am sad.

He hit me.  I am mad.

Lots of causes. Lots of pain.

Day after day. Blow after blow I was placed squarely in his perpetual state of hate. Confusion.  Sadness. Loneliness.  I never had a chance to fully recover from the act before.  Unless I chose numbness.

These past several months I have been drowning in the darkness of physical pain.  And just when I was strong enough to come up for air; the stifling fist of anxiety pressed against my chest until it hurt.  And again I fell into the darkness.

It is an awful existence.  There have been days.  There have been nights.  An end was a welcome thought.  The ideation itself was soothing; strange as that might sound.  But that is as close as I will ever venture to the edge.  I know what happens beyond that cliff and it is not the glorified means to an end.

Enough of that though.  This is more about what I have learned.  

I do not have to stay in a state of constant pain.  As a child I did.  

As an adult I am free to move around.  I am free to chart my own emotional course.  It might be a physical movement.  From the bed to the treadmill to the shower.  Or it might be the emotional act of rearranging furniture and piles of luggage in my head.  The best part though; the world will not end.  Even if I shut the door on a room in disarray.  

There is no open door policy.  The requirement that gives no privacy for pain.  No revolving doors.  Those are the worst kind of doors with no beginning or an end.  

I will open those unfinished doors again because I want a healthy mind.  One room at a time.  Maybe two if really needed; a guest suite of sorts.

Closed doors were not allowed as a child.  I should have known that the exact opposite was true in my mental landscape. 
 Open.  Shut.  Cracked.  Locked. 
 The simple fact of choice is a powerful one.  
And a key I hope to never forget.