Solace in Moonlight

Nights are so beautiful, and quiet, so cool and comforting. It’s the best time to hop into your bed to rest after a day of hard work because it’s when the Earth sleeps, so you can sleep. It’s also when my mind goes into overdrive. When I feel like peeling my skin from my bones because my thoughts are in anarchy. My sleeping pills no longer have a therapeutic effect and I’m going through my days on 3 hours of sleep.

Is there really solace in moonlight?

Hey guys, I have been absent for quite some time, but I don’t think I should apologize for it. I think sometimes we don’t realize that being human allows us to be imperfect, because no one will ever be perfect. It’s totally fine to not be okay, to not keep up with social media and blog posts all the time, to not be in the mood to have conversations at work every day. Does it make you a bad person? Does it mean you don’t care anymore? No. It means you’re quite normal and sometimes taking a break is what saves you from falling off the edge.

I was going through my e-book yesterday and randomly fell into a piece titled “Circle”, which represents one of the lowest periods of my life. I wrote this piece to outline what a sigh of relief it would be if I ended my life. The weight it would lift off the shoulders of the world and of persons I believed were sacrificing so much to ensure I had a good life. Circle represents a day I thought killing myself would bring anyone any benefit. Why should anyone use suicide as an escape? Maybe if we normalized being abnormal and sought to bring comfort to those who need it, we’d be better able to accept stress and always work to find a better way of dealing with them. Normalize talking to people, or a professional or talking with your pen. Normalize allowing people to feel and to cry and to fucking be human.

Either way, I realized Circle was in no way a good solution to anything I was experiencing. I’m very happy I was able to write about it, so I can share it with you now.

CIRCLE

[A round plain figure whose boundary consists of points equidistant from a fixed point (the centre).]

Ten wooden spikes I martialled across my lawn in a circle, and my corpse laid within white sheets. I slit my wrists ten times.

Amen.

My tears now watered the garden below me. I slit my throat ten times.

Fix it Jesus,

Amen.

My woolly hair juxtaposed the silky green flora that upheld my soul, and the cold evening refreshed my lungs, but my breaths were still numbered. I remembered the pieces I wrote about sparking light in a cold and broken Earth, but I figured my soul was probably what made this world cold and broken. I mean, I had a rock-hard core that could conjure flames upon the ten wooden spikes I martialled across my lawn, so how could I have saved this world?

The scorpions came to beat the djembes to initiate the festival, for it was a celebration of the death of darkness and lies, which I thought I was. A murder of crows in the heavens constructed a reflection of the circle that bore my corpse. Then a raven descended to retrieve my soul.

And my tears ceased in joy.

I was now saved. No more would I burden the souls of those who celebrated my existence. My tears ceased in joy. No more would I flood my days with the stress of the insignificant array of turmoil on this land.

My tears ceased in joy, for I was now dead.

Praise be to the light my death would spark in a cold and broken Earth, from the circle that sheltered my corpse within white sheets.

______

I remember writing this at 19 years old. A young, medical student pursuing his passion of becoming a doctor to save the world. What could have possibly led me to believe killing myself was the solution to anything?

A few months ago, I was talking to a friend on a social media platform. After explaining a part of my battle with depression he answered, “I didn’t know people like you went through those things.” I didn’t ask him what he meant by that statement, but I still wonder what about me or my life made me “people like you”. Was it being a medical student? Was it being someone who always seemed happy on social media? And I still wonder what makes a person the perfect candidate for being depressed. What does a depressed person look like anyway? Because we don’t all skip showers and have a bad odour and messy hair (see Men & Depression post).

I remember writing this piece at about 1am on a school night. And to think of it, I don’t think I’ve had a “good” night’s rest in years. What I can say though, is that the notes app on my iPhone has saved me from falling into the abyss on several occasions. Writing has helped me out of offering my life to the sharks for years, and it still is. What’s beautiful is how okay it is to be yourself in the writing, however flawed you are; how calming it is to be able to write random paragraphs every time you have a mood swing and how personal you can make these points without anyone’s judgement. It has helped me recognize that sometimes I’ll be sad, sometimes I’ll be happy or angry, and it’s important to allow my body to go through that.

So no, there’s no solace in moonlight for me, and that’s okay. Because, I use my time under the moon to write about my feelings and save myself. And even though I can’t sleep, and I’ll feel drunk for the entire day ahead, I’m saving myself for the right solution to come. Sometimes we give up on ourselves too quickly, and my note pad has taught me that I can always find the strength to press on. I also want to thank everyone who has purchased my book BECOMING A BUTTERFLY, whether e-book or hardcopy. I hope reading it has brought you some help or at least some entertainment.

So, this blog post I guess was just a little hello from my burrow. I wanted you to know how great it is to allow yourself to feel and ride your emotions and how normal it is to be abnormal.

Remember, be kind!

Cheers!

DISCLAIMER: The piece MUST NOT be used for commercial purposes without the approval of the author.

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