Living vs. Surviving

There are moments in time where I feel that breathing is a difficult task to conquer.  I feel there is a haze over my eyes where I only see bad, no good.  When I ask myself a million questions because I feel that my world is ending.  “Why does this happen? Why don’t I have any friends?  Why have I never fallen in love?  Why don’t boys like me?  Why doesn’t anyone like me?”  I continually overthink each aspect of my being and continually feel a heaviness digging into my shoulders within each question.  One day, I couldn’t drag myself to even survive.  I did not even want to survive.  I wanted to stop and just feel nothing.  I felt uncontrollable.  I felt that my mind and body were on overdrive and I had no idea what I should do.  In these moments,  surviving is all I can do.  In these moments, it takes everything in me to slow down my breathing, to eat a meal, to do anything but crawl into my bed and sleep.  For hours, days, months.  These moments grew and grew.  All I could do was survive.

On my darkest day, I felt as though my life was over.  I could not survive any longer.  But in just that moment, I started thinking.  Started pulling myself from the place I was in.  I told myself, “Wait.”  I thought to myself,  the reason I am surviving is so one day I could live. One day I would travel.  One day I would fall in love with someone who truly loves me.  One day I will be someone.  One day I will get away from this darkness and light will appear.  One day I will be at peace.  But not right now.  Right now I have to remember that the future still awaits.  That my mothers arms are just around the corner and are willing to squeeze me as tight as could be. That I do not have to stop now just because my mind is overthinking.  I still have time to live. 

I was in the bath on Friday night after a long week of surviving.  I felt one of those dark moments start itching its way up through my body.  I laid in the hot bath sobbing.  I couldn’t stop.  I tried to drain out each tear by putting my music louder and louder.  I played the band Hole as loud as I possibly could so I could stop.  Stop realizing how upset I was, stop crying, stop letting myself get to the place in which I feel uncontrollable.  Then I remembered that day.  The day in which I almost stopped surviving.  I remembered how I decided that one day I was going to live. 

I started thinking.  Is there a difference between surviving and living?  Yes.  I believe there is.  One could survive without ever truly living but you cannot live without first being able to survive.  The base line of life is survival.  Eating, drinking, surviving.  That is how some people live.  That is how we first have to remember to live before we get to the true essence of life.  Living.  Living is something which I take for granted.  Living is going outside.  It is running. It is being free. It is traveling, adventuring, learning.  It is expanding your horizon of life and seeing the beauty of life.  It is falling in love.  Feeling warmth and feeling ones touch, or a hug.  It is being beyond surviving. 

It has been the hardest and most enlightening year of my life. The downs are as low as where hell would be. The highs take me higher than any drug would ever be able to. I have loved. I have lost. I have lost ones I loved with all my heart.  My aunt, my grandpa, my sweet little friend. Yet, the world is continuing to turn. I feel that it shouldn’t be sometimes. I feel that me, my life, is going in slow motion. It is a movie without any scripts, without any cameras. Yet it is still playing. Everyday a new scene. Another story. I have survived the downs and I have lived in the highs. That is the way of life. Living. Once you know how to survive. The moments in which I felt I couldn’t even survive, I learned how important it is to live. How important each soul in a human is. How important it is to carry each person you have lost with you everyday so they can continue to live.  You cannot dwell on the moments that breathing is hard in. For the balance of life is to simply follow your soul. Go running. Go lay down outside. Feel the earth beneath you. Become the soil, so you can blossom. With the right will and the right water. You will become as tall as a sunflower. You will grow each day to the sun. For each day is different, but your essence stays the same.  Live.