Breathe.
Dark clouds grew ominous as they began to roll out, spreading themselves across the sky, overtaking the last bits of daylight that remained. The wind screams more than it howls, simultaneously threatening and promising a storm with its banter.
Unmindful of the signs, the air grows heavy and the pressure puts more weight on me than I can bare—it’s suffocating. The trees begin to thrash as thunder echoes their calls in the distance. Thick sheets of rain begin to pour down from the sky like a curtain, then lightning makes its grand entrance. Hot silver charging across a dark canvas, striking trees, dismembering their extensions, and ruining their foundation. Branches are torn off like paper limbs while bark flies off in strips only to lie scattered across the ground. They are fragments of what is left behind of, pieces of what was once whole. In an instant, it changes. Chaos happens. Things break. Time passes.
Breathe.
I often find myself holding my breath. I’m holding in words, thoughts, feelings. I’m trying to keep my composure and hold things together. I try to pause things, slow them down, reworking them in a way that will somehow make sense. But things don’t always make sense and things cannot always stay.
Storms happen. We throw fits and tantrums, and we say things we don’t mean because we’re angry. We’re angry because things don’t look the way they once did, we don’t feel the way we once felt. So, I’m learning to close my eyes and just breathe.
We scream in confusion. We scream in loneliness. We scream in disappointment.
Breathe.
I’m going to speak more clearly now because these things aren’t helping me anymore. We need to allow things to break. We need to allow people the chance to change and start over, to be free of everything and everyone that is no longer pushing them forward. You do not get to tell me it’s wrong. People aren’t meant to be held in one place, you need to keep chasing what makes you happy and let go of what doesn’t.
What’s done in the dark will come to light.
In the aftermath of the storm, the chaos, the wreckage—the truth begins to surface. All the scraps and pieces we found ourselves holding desperately to, they’re minuscule now. We gain clarity and confidence in our decisions. We see now what is worth saving and what is not, we see what we’ve lost and what we have the potential to gain.
Our view is different now because we are different, it’s all different.
Just breathe.
The rain was promised, the wind already unleashed, but there will be sunshine and warmth soon, time to rebuild and repair. You cannot control every situation that comes your way, you cannot control the people that cross your path. You cannot control the elements that surround you, how others interpret what you do or how you do it, but you can control yourself.
You can choose to tear everything down, break everything you thought was set in stone. You can choose to breathe, to be better, to step over the rubble, and keep trying.
Just breathe.
Featured image via Garon Picceli on Pexels
