I often get asked how come I am where I am at 25?
Where did I come from since I don’t (at least at first glance) fit the American mold of where one should come from?
And like several of my overachieving, young and slightly haunted peers, I usually say “a heady, potent, knock-your-socks-off mix of privilege (class/familial wealth/access to elite education/entitlement) and trauma (survivor of more than a few things, but then again aren’t we all?).”
So I wrote a lil motivational speech, what I’d want to read if I where on the outside looking in -
Shout out to everyone living with suicidal ideation.
Shoutout to everyone who lost a loved one to suicide and still gets the dreams.
Shoutout to your fully formed, shiny, beautifully whole partners who can’t fully understand the dark, twisty, haunty that is your suicide wrecked brain, but love you anyway.
Shoutout to the one person that gets it, or the two.
The one who doesn’t but responds to your 7am desperation anyway.
The one you fucked over who still listens.
Shoutout to the boundaries you create that help.
Or don’t help at all but sound great on paper.
The tight rope you walk every day its cold or dark outside.
The therapy you go to even when your worst bits patiently wait for you in the waiting room.
Shoutout to the dark and twisty for never fully going away. The weird, elusive, unreliable perspective and sense of old age and experience it gives you anyway.
Shoutout to the mess of it all, our horrible, beautiful minds, and the days we’re able to see beyond the fog.
Shoutout to the depressed overachievers and the constant competition to outdo your own sad, hurting brain.
Shoutout to the days you’re able to rest, and get away from it all.
Shoutout to anyone who ever made you feel more loved than your thoughts allowed you to feel you deserve.
You deserve it.
I deserve it.
And one day we’ll rest
Someday, we’ll set our sad, haunted bits free
But for now, we can begin by by naming the haunted.