Beautiful writing from Arwen Faulkner.
For survivors of adversity, there's no way to trigger proof life.
Fall doesn't come with a warning.
Trauma and adversity change the way we experience ourselves and the world, maybe how we sleep or don't sleep and how we function or struggle to function. While parenting or working or breathing.
Certain days or entire seasons.
Some mornings. Some nights. Every night at certain times.
I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. On the wrong side of myself. I feel ugly, exhausted, out of sorts, on the outside of everything. I bumble through my morning routine in a fog. Easily exasperated, far too impatient, I sigh and mumble under my breath as I rush the kids to get ready for daycare, my words stumbling over themselves in an effort to appear normal, whatever the hell that is. It is bad enough that I had to leave the sanctuary of my bedroom today at all, really, but is it truly necessary for me to be normal, too?
If so, I think, epic fail.
I smile harder, because I do not know what else to do, and keep going.
I take my meds. Remind myself that a bad day is just a bad day and not the end of the world. Keep going. Keep going, yes, but with a belly full of fanged butterflies determined to escape. Usually, the medication settles the rush of wings, but today—these days—it barely takes the edge off. On the balcony, catching the last rays of the summer sunshine, I try to figure out why.
Then it occurs to me. Fall is on the way.
It’s in the air, at night, I can smell it. Trigger season. To keep reading....
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