The Day Is Done, And I Find So Much Hope In That

starting new, girl by sunset, starting a new day
Roberto Nickson

The day is over and what’s been done?

We woke up at the start, continued the lives we put to bed the night before. We breathed in and out countless times without the need to consciously think of the ways in which we are, to a certain extent, machines. We pushed away bad thoughts, buried them underneath the loudest distractions our brains could conjure.

We made it through another day.

And maybe for some of us that survival is a given, and maybe for the rest of us it’s not.

Maybe the stretch of our limbs doesn’t always loosen our joints. Maybe breathing is painful sometimes and oxygen feels like the water we do not have the gills to breathe. Maybe every piece of land has turned to ocean and we’ve only just realized we never learned to swim.

Maybe some days life is choking and flailing and drowning.

Maybe that’s okay.

Maybe it’s normal for the earth we inhabit to be an uncharted planet, a place where the laws of gravity don’t exist. A place where you’re forced to see your surroundings from an upside down position, never sure which vantage point you’ll experience the next time you open your eyes.

But all days end. Because humans have created the concept of time and it’s forever impossible to not automatically measure our experience into minutes, hours, seconds. Days, months, years.

The best part all of this is that the passing of time makes it so that nothing lasts forever.

The clock strikes the hour and the day is done. We lay our heads onto our pillows and eventually we sleep, even if we don’t really want to. Our body fights us and wins every time, knows we need to recharge, regroup, even if it needs to happen while we’re unconscious and dreaming.

Some days our body feels like a burden rather than a friend, but it always pulls us through.

We sleep. We dream. We wake with the sun and we’re given another chance. We step outside and feel air against our skin. Our pores open, allowing our surroundings to be absorbed into the deepest parts of us.

The day can be a struggle, but it’s not a struggle every day and at that counts for something.

The point is, there’s always something.

A spark of light at the end of each dark night. Growth in a place where the land was once barren. Hope after tears and seemingly endless despondency. Strength that replaces fear. The knowledge that we can do more than we’ve been doing, that we are worth more than we give ourselves credit for.

Revelations; life is full of them. And if you listen closely enough, each day ends with one.

The day is over and what’s been done?

We woke and breathed and fought. We experienced growth one way or another, without even realizing it.

We made it through another day.

You made it through another day, even if it was a difficult one.

Embrace those hard days. The days when you sigh heavily as your head hits the pillow with relief. Because you survived. You made it. You are able to close your eyes and dream and know that you will wake up in the morning, revitalized and ready to try again.

The day is over and what’s been done?

The answer is “life”.

The answer is “everything”. Thought Catalog Logo Mark


About the author

Nicole Vetrano

A writer of creative non-fiction who drinks copious amounts of coffee.

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