Best Days

On my best days, I walk to work.  

My walking commute to the Parker Memorial Library is ridiculously short; driving, it's obscenely brief. I usually drive because I go to Dunkin Donuts first.  Anything worth doing well is worth doing with an iced coffee in one hand.  I take the mile and a half ride down to my favorite drive-thru, order a large iced black with extra sugar, and easily fly back down the street to the library. As I drive back, I feel a momentary sense of pride in ordering a coffee with no dairy, and then an equally-timed sense of guilt for ordering it with extra sugar.  I always forget my Stevia at home. 

Anyway, there are days when I walk to work.  In those brief minutes, I breathe in the air as deeply as I can.  I notice things like the brands of cigarette butts I pass in my travels, or the way a soda can has been maimed and tossed to the side of the road. I hear the cars passing by on Route 38; motorcycles make the most interesting and annoying sounds.  Sometimes I imagine a helmeted head turns and watches me ambling past the hair salon and dance studio with a TARDIS messenger bag slung over my shoulder and a travel mug of iced coffee in each hand. (The days when I walk are the days when I made my caffeine fix at the house...and those mugs are small, so stop judging the number!)

The other day I was walking to work, making my usual observations. I suddenly realized that I was ignoring the bigger problem.  It's a problem that follows me around, just like my friend Bipolar.  It's like Bipolar has this annoying kid brother who always tags along, and his name is Self-Harm.

Self-harm is exactly what it says on the tin: hurting oneself.  It comes in forms as diverse as the people who engage in it.  Some people burn themselves, some people cut themselves, some people hit themselves with objects, some people scratch themselves to the point where the skin begins to redden and even open. Some people pull out their hair, some people bite or pick at their finger and toenails until there's nothing left but the bleeding.  People generally engage in this behavior because they are so upset, frustrated, depressed, or anxious, they cannot think of another way to fight the growing explosion inside.  There are all kinds of different names for people's various preferences.  I'm a cutter.  Cutting my skin (usually on my arms) is horrible and wonderful.  I do not know how to describe the feelings that come before, during, and after this action is taken. 

Walking to work the other day is what made me realize that I can't describe the feelings, and that I'm focusing on anything BUT those feelings because they scare me.  

That's it.

That's the punchline.

My own feelings around self-harm are so conflicting and confusing that I don't know what to do about them.  I just keep going to my therapist and talking about it.  That's all I can do.  That's all ANYONE can do.

On my best days, I walk to work. Perhaps enough trips past the hair salon and dance studio with a TARDIS messenger bag slung over my shoulder will begin to provide answers.  Maybe I'll stop ignoring the feelings and explore them instead.  

Perhaps all of my days ahead are my best days.

On my best days, I walk to work.