the sun will always come out.

 

This morning I woke up feeling sad. I didn't sleep well last night–tried going to bed at 1 and tossed and turned until 3 before I finally fell asleep. I had the urge to live out a memory from my fifteen-year-old self this morning. Lay in bed, listen to "One Man Drinking Games" by Mayday Parade, and cry because you can't keep it all together anymore.

Everything feels so heavy lately. Home in Waupaca, and Home in Burlington have ghosts wandering around in them. Work stress just adds to the general feeling of unrest in my head. Add in my anxiety and a good kick in the ass from my depression and most days I sit and wonder why I even bother to get out of bed in the morning. It feels like there's nowhere that I can go that's quiet, where I can just block everything out. It's enough to make you miss being seventeen and running around the old fish hatchery with your camera and tripod, perching precariously on bridge railings all for the best picture. 

Time is a funny thing. The older I get, the more I realize the hazy sense of nostalgia my mom gets whenever she talks to me about "When I was your age..." and her own teenage and twenty-something antics. Right now, I'm closer to being 30 than to being 17. That's terrifying and exciting at the same time. To have a life that you've lived and slugged through every single day, and you get to remember the good parts.

The bad parts though are harder to stomach. Memory is such a strong vault of information. Nothing is worse than when something so insignificant triggers a bad memory. The sight of a little pup tent used to be able to reduce to me tears. Blue Moon Beer, vodka cranberries, the sound of ice cubes clinking in a glass on Friday nights. They're all triggers to memories of bad times in my life, which is both a blessing and a curse. A curse because, let's face it, no one wants to be reminded of a shitty time in their life. But they're sort of a blessing because being triggered, for me, reminds of everything I have faced since then, everything I have lived through that has been harder than that, and I'm proud of how far I've come. 

The bad times don't last forever, despite the times when they feel like they do. The light will always shine through. If I've learned anything over the last 24 years, it's that.