Two months after

This is an excerpt from my diary two months after my brother’s death:

“I have been struggling with deciding what to write about. I don’t feel creative enough; I don’t feel as if I can produce something so incredible that somebody’s very course of direction could be derailed even slightly. But is that all I’m good for? Am I only worthy of appreciation if my skills are depleted to perfection? My emotions have been stale and a blur as of late. I feel nothing most of the time and my head can be as blank as a freshly purchased sheet of paper ready to be ruined with ink, and then all of a sudden, everything is too much. I can be the happiest I’ve ever been and the second I feel alone, the freshest of air has been exasperated from my lungs. I can’t breathe. I think to myself that sleep can fix this, right? I try to close my eyes but no air is being allowed through my tear enraged sinuses. I eventually fall asleep hours later and wake up with my eyes swollen shut. My sight became punished for its crimes for expressing my emotions and allowing others to see what I’m truly feeling. I don’t know how to fix this. If it’s incurable, how am I to ever cope when I know that instance will persevere to occur again? Must I expect every incident of happiness to later be met with an unbearable consequence? I ask myself these questions constantly because I don’t think I did anything wrong. I started the night out with friends, dancing to the Cure like I’d never been professionally diagnosed with road blocks and identified as a grieving person. I didn’t drink. I didn’t do anything I could possibly convince myself to regret. I was fun, charming even. I had access to more than a fair share of my daily allowance. Yet, the second my feet stepped into the familiar, my dark room full of items I loved and abnormal amount of comfort, my emotions never felt more terrifyingly real. And I couldn’t escape it. The crying wouldn’t stop. I laid for hours attempting to soothe an impaired mind trapped in the structured caves of my cranium. I smothered my body with soft fabrics and infiltrated my brain with techniques I learned from the most resourceful of doctors. Over. And over. And over. Again. Again. Again. I barely opened my eyes after my sleeping pill induced slumber, knowing I had halted the fiery sadness for now and I must go out and start all over once more. How is it that the most beautiful thing about being a human and the awareness of it must cause so much agony? How am I able to think such wonderful thoughts about my peers and my cat and the universe yet hostility and aggravation can seep through the unstable floors like a hasty flood wearing down the foundations of my very own home? I do my best to protect the ability to imagine a better future for myself. An eventful one. But I am careful to not predict something too magnificent to where it’s evident that I planned it out. I would like to lessen the probability of one day an irritated, tired woman yelling “Cut!” for the seventeenth time because her agents of artistry failed to carry out her vision. When my prophecies of a better life fall and break and fragment into a million pieces, I feel as if I cursed myself because I once wished for something greater. I will now face the repercussions and my ambitious self must fetch the remains in the deepest pits of the graveyard and attempt to rebuild. I cannot trust my hopes much longer when a mind that has felt the Midas touch and a self-induced deep cleaning erased and scrubbed every glimpse of existence of that memory controls the life I want to live. I’ve always wanted so much more for myself, setting aside my slight nihilism that creeps into my forefront every once and awhile, I believe I can achieve it. I just do not know when, and the timer in my tissues constantly ticks, creating a wave so loud that my body shakes constantly reminding me that I am not on track. I need more time. I need to hurry. I feel like my life has been on pause since last spring and the most traumatic of events cannot wake me; the bored, annoying viewer is screaming through the Television for that girl to find the clues and get her life back together. My mind has been continuously complaining about the heat all day and when my fingertips finally reach the control system and cool air blast through the vents, chills pierce through my skin and I must close the openings as soon as possible to avoid the feeling of being uncomfortable in my body. The life I deserve is out there and if my exhausted resources outlive my permutation, I will sprint through the twists and turns with my limbs boosting myself from every inch of the walls to face what I always knew in my bones was waiting for me.”