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IPFS News Link • Self-Help: Rational Living

Slow Down and See How Beautiful Everything Is

• Organic Prepper - Daisy Luther

When I first learned that I might not ever regain my mobility, I wanted to be dead.

Bear with me – I know this isn't starting out as an entertaining piece of Saturday Shenanigans, but I promise – it gets better. I touched on some of this before, but with a different focus and far less gritty.

For a while, I thought that I had nothing left to live for. Despondent would have been an upgrade to describe how I was feeling. Everything I always did required mobility – wandering around a maze of foreign cities, hiking in the woods, trying to beat yesterday's step count on my Fitbit. But not just that – standing up and cooking elaborate meals for my family, decorating my home, going out to dinner – it felt like all that was over, forever. I would now be a burden on my children and I didn't want to do that. I was, in my state of mind then, no longer of use and no longer worthwhile.

Overnight, it felt like I had gone from middle-aged to elderly.

I spent about two weeks in the depths of despair, actively considering whether or not I should end it. I decided that I had to wrap up some loose ends – things to make it easier for my daughters. I also thought that Grace's story in  The Widow in the Woods deserved to be finished.

That may seem like an odd choice of what to focus on, but when you feel like your very existence is a heavy load for those you love, sometimes it doesn't make sense what thing motivates you to keep going. All that matters is that you find that thing. If I'd been thinking rationally, I wouldn't have been in that dark place anyway.

I hid my severe depression from most of my friends and family because that's a lot to put on someone you love. I put my head down, and I wrote. I couldn't leave this undone. Grace deserved better. My readers deserved better. That was the only thing during that time that I could see as a worthwhile thing I could accomplish.

But that's when the magic happened. By focusing on something outside of myself, something I could completely control, I could step out of the deep grief I was feeling. When I wasn't writing, it was still there, as heavy a weight as ever. But when I was creating Grace's world and solving Grace's problems, I felt lighter.


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