After the flood-
And then all of a sudden - after a moment capable of reviving the soul - you will begin to breathe again. It won’t happen all at once, no - the weight lifts much more gradually, but you will realize it in a single instance.
This moment never comes right when you want it to, in fact, it’s normally when you least expect it. But never as you’re gasping for air, pleading for breath to find your lungs. This is when the weight it heaviest, when it cracks your ribs and suffocates your soul. And you will cry and plead but that weight won’t waver.
Until one day, it does. Eventually, it does. And when that finally happens - no longer will you feign the memory of your laugh, because for the first time in a long time you hear it - you really fucking hear it.
And in those moments, you begin to breathe again.
No one knows how many of these moments you need. But even though you’re suffocating in the spaces between those moments, you will push. Everyone pushes. Swimming for the surface, fighting your way above the violent waves, you will push for every minuscule gasp of air you can get. And you’re choking on water but you just keep swimming.
Until eventually the sea starts to calm down. You stop fighting with the waves and begin flowing with them. You learn the current, and as you begin to move with it - it begins to move you. And then without even realizing where it was taking you, you’re to the shore. Your feet are on the sand and you’re already beginning to dry off. And as the sun hits your skin and the ocean breeze becomes your breath, you realize the waves don’t touch you anymore.
Remember when your feet finally do touch the sand, that you were drowning. You got caught in the middle of an ocean that robbed the breath right from your lungs, and could’ve robbed your whole life with it, too. Remember that every time you breathe, that you fought for that breath. That life tried to steal your air away but you wouldn’t let it.
And if you ever have to fight for your air again,
remember this: you fucking won.
