Breathe

There are days when everything shifts.  Your world spins on its axis, and you hang on…unsure when it will stop or how long you can defy the centrifugal force and remain standing.  Sometimes it is a phone call, a letter, or an email.  It might be a knock at the door late at night.  Perhaps a left turn when you so clearly should have chosen right. 

It doesn’t really matter what the thing is; the point is that it is sufficient to take your breath away.  The point is that you have to keep breathing. 

Life does not stop after we are dealt such a blow; bills still have to be paid, children need to be fed; kittens still mew at your feet; laundry does not wash itself…

You still have to eat, try to sleep…and retain your strength; because you will need it.  It is hard work holding together a shattered world.  It is hard work sorting through thoughts.  It is hard work maintaining some normalcy while finding your footing. 

And breathe.  For the sake of all that is good in this world, remember to breathe.  Deep breaths, nausea quelling breaths, tear allaying breaths.  Definitely breathe.

Drink tea.  Lots of tea…whatever kind you prefer, it does not matter.  A good Doctor once said, “Tea!  That's all I needed!  Good cup of tea!  Super-heated infusion of free-radicals and tannin, just the thing for healing the synapses.”  Whether it is true or not, it made me smile, so I am including here, in case it makes someone else smile.  And I do like a nice cuppa.

There are days when words seem to have no meaning anymore, or perhaps their meanings have simply shifted beyond recognition, and you no longer know what to think, how to interpret.  Days when the words seem to jumble and shout and echo long after they were actually spoken.  Words that haunt.

Everyone has at least one of these days, at some time or another.  Today is my day.  Today is my day to muddle through somehow.  Today is my day to curl up with a cuppa.  Soon, it will be my night to lie in bed and stare into the dark.