This Is For The Gentle Souls

There will be days that you want to be alone in the dark, like a womb.

There will be days that no voice of reason, no vote of confidence, no word of wisdom will be able to reach you.

There will be times that your heart is encompassed by a tower that you created around it so that nothing can hurt it. But if nothing can touch it, nothing can come out of it like love, compassion, or empathy.

There will be moments that find you curled up on the ball on the floor with the door locked and the curtains drawn. No sound except the soft hum of the floor fan in front of you.

No matter what anyone tells you, I am here to tell you that it is okay. You are okay. Or at least, you will be.

It’s not your fault that this life happened to you. Sometimes this thing called life gets too hard to bear and you need to retreat within yourself to gather the strength needed to fight another day. Depression can be a dragon, that breathes fire and seeks to swallow you up whole. It can also be an army that divides your body up like a map and conquers you into sections, planting its flags of victory along your soul along the way.

It’s not like you mean to be this way. Everyone acts like you can snap your fingers and be happy and assumes you snapped your fingers and decided to be “sad.” As if you woke up in the morning and opened the doors to your closet and said, Hmm, I think I’ll be depressed today. They don’t understand the strength it takes to overcome the desire to shrink under beds and into closets and instead walk out into the world, into the beaming light of the sun and say, here I am again world, come what may. The sheer courage it takes for you to take that shower, get dressed, put shoes on and stagger out of the door can be rivaled with any hero one could think of. You wear your cape under your smile, when you can find it.

I’m here to tell you that you are my hero. Yes, you, gentle soul with a crack down the middle. Imperfection as art in motion.

I don’t want perfection. I want your sick, your tired, your pain, your tears. You are the embodiment of taking what life has to offer and getting back up to take it again the next day.

Yes, you are stronger than you give yourself credit for. But even without giving yourself credit you have still managed to find that something within you that tells you to keep going and you have done it. You are not fearless but you keep moving. You keep pushing. Even on days where you don’t have it together, you walk, with a heart wide open, into a world ready to devour you and you come out on the other end victorious because you have survived another day.

Gentle souls don’t get enough credit and don’t ask for it anyway. They deserve the applause and the accolades for showing up and don’t ask to even be acknowledged. But I see you. Through the shadows that you wrap yourself in. Through the layers you wrap yourself up in. Through the darkness. Through the silence. I see you. 

You are not your depression and your depression is not you. You, gentle soul, are more than a conqueror. Go forth.