I would rather die than take this pill.
Typically, I would write something inspiring about what the mountains have taught me, or something the forests and the trees have helped me accomplish.
But right now, I want to tell everyone who wants me to keep trying, to fuck off. You haven’t been in my shoes. You haven’t had to carry my bag. You just don’t know. That’s not your fault. But it’s the truth.
I’m holding myself too tightly to manage one step forward. I’m afraid the demon that seems to be living inside me will explode out of my stomach and cause a rage that I have no idea how to tolerate. If I don’t move, if I lie very still, the demon doesn’t wake. If I stay, safely within the walls of the present moment and pretend nothing else exists, I am safe. I feel protected. But don’t ask me to stand up. Don’t ask me to look ahead. Certainly, don’t ask me to make a decision. It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s that I can’t.
If I lay very still, the demon thinks he has defeated me, and that he can rest a while before his next attack. If you’ve ever read stories about how the approach to being attacked by a bear is different depending on what type of bear it is, then the next few paragraphs might make some sense to you
Who am I kidding? I don’t want to write. I just want to have this all be over with. I feel like I have nothing to live for, but no reason to die. Things just feel stupid. And I hate stupid. More on the bears later.
I promise I haven’t forgotten about the bears. To put it simply, if it’s a black bear chasing you, you fight. If it’s a brown bear trying to maul you, you play dead and hope for the best. My demon seems to be a grizzly. Which is brown. There you have it.