The Future Is Bright

I laughed when she said it: “the future is bright.” For once it wasn’t one of those terse bitter laughs. I had actually found amusement in this cute little phrase. Bright is my mother’s maiden name, and a great majority of the women who marry into our family use that line as their marital slogan. The future is bright.

My friend had been trying to lift my spirits that day. I was worried. I didn’t belong in the places I was “supposed” to be. I’d been wading through mounds of uncertainty every single day, and the pressure was beginning to weigh on me. But this was only the present, she’d pointed out. The future is bright.

I feel like this will be the exhilarating part of my story, the part that I relay to a crowd of roaring fans at my first acceptance speech. I’ll tell them I quit my job without a backup. That I walked to save gas, and ate my parents’ pantry pickings to save money. That I worried, really worried, about money for the first time. I’ll tell them that I finally accepted that the life prescribed to me by every teacher and auntie I ever had just didn’t fit my makeup.

I want to tap into that inspirational radiance early. I’m trying to get excited about the fact that my only option is to overcome. I remind myself daily that the rough chapters make for an interesting book. Because, while the future may be bright, this year up to the present has been pretty grim.

I haven’t felt like myself since March. Around April I became the type of neurotic freak who folds her underwear (no offense to you other neurotic freaks folding your underwear out there). Around June I ballooned and decided to quit taking my medications. I stopped wanting to see my own face in late July. In August I didn’t want anyone to see my body. Not even myself. Here we are in September. I have no job. I have no therapist. I have no medication. But I have all the hope in the world. This may or may not be the best time to go on my first unchaperoned international trip. I leave in seventeen days for Malaysia and Bali, and I can’t help but wonder who I’ll be when I return.

Last night a curled my legs under myself in bed at 10:00 pm. I drew, I journaled, and I began to believe in a time when I went to bed at a Godly hour. The ritual felt so familiar. I’m sensing that, after two years of jamming into an unfittable mold, I may be unfolding into myself again.

I guess I just had to get this out. To give my readers a few pieces of this puzzling time in my life. If you’re reading this you’ve been patient, patient with my long absences and dismal posts about death in between. Patience is a virtue. Keep that. I’ll be back to my coherent self in no time. The future is bright.