Wellbeing

You’ve never seen me sleeping in New Cabell—mind your business.

“Hang tight, man.”

Is what the doctor said to me before leaving to search for an ultrasound machine so they could make sure my ovaries hadn’t twisted and cut off their own blood supply.

It’s been five months since I’ve needed a morning alarm—awakening to light, not sound.

The claiming of the presents I wrapped was to keep the peace, the lying was to protect themselves—everyone needs protection, right?

As she shapes my nails, we talk about the state of modern poetry, of literature as a magnum for capitalist venture...

I’m compelled not only to read, but also to consider the complete worldview of others, painfully seeing the crack that puts my world at crisis...

I have a confession to make: lately, I’ve been struggling to keep myself together. I miss deadlines, forget to text people back. Turn things in exactly at 11:59pm. Call it the mid-semester reckoning, or midterm season, or simply being burnt out, but I (and I’m sure many of you) do not know how to manage it lately. Work is boring, I wake up more tired than when I went to sleep. I can’t find inspiration for anything.

*This piece talks about mental health, and some aspects of this piece may be triggering for someone recovering. If you are in need of mental health help and are a current UVA student, please contact CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) at (434) 243-5150 during the day. If you are in crisis and need help after hours, please call 434-243-5150 or 911 if you need immediate help. 

A soft recovery is vulnerable. Fragile bones in gaunt skin, delicate like egg shells, stress the word wan. Weak.

Another day waking up anxious. Eyes fluttering open are accompanied by a tight chest and a churning stomach. There are no butterflies. September to December brought a four month long writer’s block with one poem and a headache to show for it. Outside grows steadily darker, but the blinds on the bedroom have been broken. It’s been dark since 3:00 pm.  

Does anyone else get how absurd it is? 

To hope, you have no choice but to do so wholeheartedly; it is faith and grace and courage, the heaviest and hardest, yet packaged as airy and leavened; it’s “the thing with feathers”, of course. 

Even just saying the word, it’s impossible not to open up your mouth and chest, letting out an exhale after.