Today for the first time, I remembered what happiness felt like. As I sat at my desk, I was inexplicably filled by the smile that resided on my lips. Lifted by a lightness that coursed through my veins, I finally felt my true weight: slender and graceful, I floated within the aura of serenity surrounding me. I knew not if I had left my pit of depression and had walked towards the light, now shining on my face or whether I had entered into a bubble shielding me from the misery of the world. But my location was not important. All that mattered was that where I was, there was no past. My present was painted with such contentment that any notions of the future were accepted calmly with no need for my pulse to quicken and my shoulders to tense.
But then I made the mistake of looking down.
There is a heart shaped burn on my right forearm. As I was making tea a few days ago, I reached up towards the cupboard over the kettle and misjudged the distance. The steam from the spout rose onto the soft and sensitive skin between my wrist and elbow. I withdrew my arm in haste but it was too late and the damage was done. I sat with a cold compress against the wound for hours but the mark was made.
In wearing my heart on my sleeve, I have gathered invaluable support from those around me. However, I can see that in my transparency, my misery has etched a constant mark upon me that refuses to be forgotten. Is there more sense in sticking a plaster and a smiley face over it until the burn dissappears or do wounds really heal better out in the open as old wives say?
