In The Spirit of Keep Going (personal)

In the spirit of truth, I’ll share that the hurt will come. It will rise up slowly and then choke you out all at once. You’ll break into a million pieces on your kitchen floor. Gasping for air in an empty apartment, you’ll wonder how — how you lost your mind; how you were so blinded by the light that you thought you had escaped the dark; how this can be twisted into something beautiful. But the words will not come — or at least not at first — and so you’ll be left with the ugly truth: you hate yourself.

Pill bottles will rattle with the sound of hollow hope, and you will rattle with shame as you weakly clutch onto them. Your father will be defensive when you call to figure out why you’ve never been able to love yourself. Your mother’s voice will rattle with shame as she clutches onto the phone. You’ll resign and call it growth. You’ll binge often. You’ll listen to far too much Lana Del Rey.

Days will pass like the crashing of waves. Quickly. Endlessly. Overwhelmingly.

And then you will go for a jog in the rain. You’ll drink a little more water and breathe a little bit deeper. You’ll do yoga at 6am even when it hasn’t been doing shit for your peace. You’ll try again anyway. Bit by bit, perspective’s sweet hum will crescendo until it clashes with the symphony of hate clamoring in your skull.

In the friction of melodies, you’ll remember. You’ll remember that you are not the hate, but you have it. And yet, you also have love, and sadness, and hope, and strength, and joy, and fear. The hate will be loud, but it will not be you. You will hear it, and — good God — you will feel it, and then ever so slowly, you will let it go.

In the spirit of truth, I’ll share that these things may happen. Begrudgingly I’ll admit that you’ll always be a bit better because of them. Critically I’ll beg you to always keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Keep going.