The moment you got home to your apartment, you curled up on the floor. Fully dressed, you lay there prone for what felt like hours. You wanted to wipe off your make-up, to get undressed, to take a shower, but everything felt like it took too much strength. You didn't even make it to your bed. You watched the afternoon light fade, and when it got dark, you finally worked up the energy to flip the light switch.
Inside, you feel sad and cold, but grateful that you don't feel numb. Still, your heart feels heavy, far too heavy to carry around all day. You wish you could cut it out from your body so you could become more productive. Taking breaths becomes a conscious decision, and every one you pull into your lungs feels foreign, unwanted.
You try counting your blessings. You have a family, friends, a boyfriend, a stable job that gets you by paycheck to paycheck, great colleagues, nice things, a (relatively) healthy body. You're not sure what you're missing, or if you're actually missing anything at all. Uncertain, you wonder, what if everything that could go right with your life actually does: will you still feel this unhappy?
Don't panic, now. I know you tend to panic when you start feeling like this, because it might send you into the downward spiral you're oh-so-familiar with, but stop. Please. Panicking will only make things worse, and it will push you over the edge.
You wish you could cry, but you find you don't have the strength to do it. Your eyes are dry, and that makes you feel even worse because you know how cleansing a good cry can be. You try squeezing out a tear in the shower, but it's just not working.
Instead, you try to drown yourself out in your laptop. Open a make-up tab. Open Cracked. Open your blog. Open Girls. Do anything to get by, anything to escape for even a few minutes. And it's working, sort of.
Later, you will go to sleep earlier than usual. You will try to shake it off by tomorrow. Hopefully, you will.
You've been through this a million times before. You'll get by this time. Trust me, I know what you're capable of enduring.
