Finding me ... a nightly journey

I can feel it building up … slowly, over many days, it builds to an earth-shaking, ear-splitting creshendo.

There are moments when I feel that the emotions inside of me are boiling and building and growing til they just have to erupt; an expolosion that sends fragments of me flying in every direction.

And I cease to exist, lost in the midst of the splinters of my life.

I can hear the words spinning in my mind, screaming at me to listen. I can feel the pain tearing at my soul, begging for peace. And in my mind, I scream into the darkness.

But here in reality, I hold my tongue. My screams are silent. My pain is hidden. Breathe in. Breathe out. Oh, I hope I can remember to breathe!

Focus. Focus on getting thru one more moment. Focus on taking just one more breath. Focus on finding the calm.

And only when alone, in those quiet times of night, do the tears fall.

As I sit typing, I can feel myself regaining control over my unruly emotions. The pain seems to exit my body thru my fingertips on the keyboard and slowly I find my center again.

My center. Me. There I am.

And I sit back and revel in the fact that I am still here, that my soul has survived.
I am still intact.

Until tomorrow.

Still, I must face tomorrow.

(written in November of 1999, being shared today at the request of my friend Proud, herself a beautiful writer)