Diving into the Darkness

Another year passes, have I changed? Or am I the same? And does it matter?

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This week I’m turning 34. I thought, or maybe I hoped, that I’d feel different. That I’d be different. That another year would pass, and I would have changed. That the space between depressions would have lengthened, or disappated. That I’d look in the mirror and see someone I like more often than someone I don’t. That in time, more good would have arrived to replace the bad.

On one of my gotta-get-my-steps-in walks this weekend (ah, yes, my eating disorder, another debilitating part of my present I’d hoped would now be past) I thought about change.

What if I haven’t changed?
What if I’m not different?
What if another year has gone by, and I’m exactly the same?
Would that be ok?

I started thinking about measurements. About time. About how we use dates as milestones—or rather we accept that certain dates demand us to reflect. That these arbitrary gates we walk through somehow determine our goodness. That if we pass through time’s gates unchanged, we’ve failed. But do we not still pass through? Even if we sit in passive stillness, unmoved and unmoving, do the gates not wash over us regardless?

I know that it’s impossible for me to be unchanged. My face has aged. Relationships evolved. I know things today I didn’t know a year ago.

What I’m grieving is not the lack of change: it’s what has stayed the same. It’s the rotating thoughts of being hideous and useless I wish to be free from. The memories of my married life I wish would leave me alone. The late night binges and suicidal thoughts that somehow, despite so much therapy, insist on spending the night. The dark stuff. The stuff that hurts. The stuff I’m told makes me bad, unwell, and dark.