Days before my life had turned into a nightmare I wished I could wake up from. But this was life, not a Nightmare on Elm Street movie. And shit had just become real.
I've lived just long enough to know that things go wrong at the exact moment when everything seems to be going right, when the train is riding smoothly over the rails. Then this crappy thing happens and your world is in upheaval.
I wanted to scream, to pound my fists into some wall until holes appeared, to revert back to a child where I could throw a good old-fashioned temper tantrum.
But I'm an adult and I can't act like that anymore. I had to man up and handle my business. Inside, I was free-falling, not knowing where I would land.
I pushed through, trying to get my work done, trying not to worry about things I had no control over. I pushed to figure out what I needed to do now. I was performing triage on myself, prioritizing the mess my life was in at that moment.
Because you can't fix everything. You have to fix one thing and then move on to the next. And that's what I did.
But in those quiet moments, feelings of shame and embarrassment and downright anger creeped in and my body shook with that avalanche of emotion.
These are the moments when all you can form out of your mouth are the words, "Shit, shit, shit." Or that other word that rhymes with muck.
These are the moments you have those conversations with God. These are the moments you blame yourself for getting in this mess.
You fall deep into a depression but just before you hit that hard rock bottom, you realize you can't stay there.
I, sooner or later, figure that the only way to pull myself out is to pull myself out and reach out to friends to help me. Because these are also the moments when you realize that friendships matter and you can't conquer this all by yourself.
I remind myself constantly that it will be okay like a mantra, repeat it until I believe it through the very core of me, reverberating through every cell and every bone. It will be okay even when I don't see how it can be okay. It will be okay even when I can't find the door through which I will walk.
That Sunday, I closed the door on a part of my life. And I am walking through that other door that was always there even when I didn't see it.
