brown paint lakes

from the archives

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

I’m writing to you from a messy house. The vacuum from when I cleaned the floors earlier today is still plugged in. I’m not sure why I left it. Perhaps the floors felt incomplete, or I promised myself I would return to the task after I sat down to write these words.

Everything is half-thoughts, half-sentences. My brain can’t complete a full circle; I wonder if it’s scared. The feelings feel too heavy, and as soon as I find myself leaning in, I lean back out, divert off the trail, dive into the nearest bush and hide. A new feeling arises, something else entirely, and I embrace it for a moment, a welcomed reprieve. Eventually, that feeling becomes too heavy too. And so the process repeats. 

I’ve been wondering what it means to carry heavy feelings for longer than a moment. We’ve become so good at this, so accustomed to wearing the weight of the world around our shoulders like a springtime cardigan. The heavy feelings have become a part of us—emotions like gr…