Burden

This time of year can be a struggle for me. As I look back through the years when I pull inward, I reflect, mourn, celebrate and lose myself in the darkness. I travel back in time to a place I wanted nothing more to do but die and yet, I am still here. The road out of the darkest depths was not easy and while my life still lives within the confines of darkness, there is more light in it than there ever was. 

At times, life seems like a burden. It weighs you down and you sink into it. It can be like quicksand, the more you struggle to breathe the more it swallows you. Breaking free of the pain, the darkness can seem impossible and yet, no matter how many years have passed, that feeling never goes away but it lessens with time.  

During this time of year, I mourn for myself and celebrate a life of friend long gone. I acknowledge my death day as I call it. The day of my last suicide, the day that I learned someone cared about me, the day that someone gave me a reason to stay. That someone believed in me, that someone showed me my worth because I could not see it myself.

No matter how much times passes, the pain of the past can seem fresh, like it happened yesterday but so does the freedom of knowing you won the battle.  I have come a long way, I 'm no longer the person I once was and yet so very much the same.

Life can be a burden, but over the years, things change, I have changed and I have more tools, more weapons to fight.  There is more healing to do, there always will be and with each piece of me that I heal and mourn, that I remember and honor, the more peace comes to me. 

Music is helpful to me in my healing. I recently discovered an Irish singer name Foy Vance and found this beautiful song of his called "Burden".  This is one of those songs that you need to sit with and take into yourself.  This is one of those tissue box songs. It was for me anyway.

Normally I'd sign off and say rock on but not today.

~Maynard