You Were the Only Thing Worth Crying Over

With the sun beginning to rise, I laid down in the tall grass, barefoot and emotionally exhausted. It had been some time that I had spent running away - 7 years 4 months and 3 days to be exact. The funny thing is, when I started running I thought I was running towards a brighter future. I didn't realize that I was also running away from a tormented past, bound to follow me no matter how quickly I moved.

I was 14 when it happened. I spent the next 4 years counting down to the day when I could finally leave, and begin to forget everything. Some of the days blurred into the next, but I preferred for time to move just like that, fast and empty. However, somewhere along the way I also managed to forget how every deep wound leaves a scar.

When I first left, I ended up in Florida, hopeful to begin a new chapter in the same way many teenagers do - by going to college. Unfortunately, the only things I learned about in college were hangovers and depression. And it's not like all of my high school habits had changed, I managed to carry out my habit of bulimia well through the year and a half I lasted. Old habits die hard, huh?

After college, or my go at it, I kept my addictions close in fear that they were the only things that made me truly interesting. I spent the next 5 years moving around, soaking up life like a sponge in need of a good cleaning. The more I learned and cried and ached and pained the less I carried. I was proud of this. But I never cried to anyone about my past, only my present. I felt it would be too whiny, I mean I always felt like we all had a rough childhood in our own way, so why cry about mine when everyone else seems fine? Plus, what if they want to cry? I'd rather listen to them, anyway.

And so I listened. I listened and I responded and then I listened some more. It's crazy how distracted you can keep yourself with other peoples problems. I mean, most people just want to talk about themselves all the time, so who am I to stop them? Everyone seemed to like my advice, and the more I gave the more they asked. I began to become busy with everyone else's life, and it was proving to be much easier than focus on my own.

Who knew I could also run while sitting still? Being far away from where it all began helped, but it wasn't enough. Luckily, helping other people was. As long as I could keep my mind busy with thinking about everyone else, then I never had to think about myself. Sounds like it will work forever, right?

Very wrong. Every two weeks or so, I would experience what is best described as burn out, and when this happened I could barely lift myself out of bed. I knew I was going, going, going and thinking, thinking, thinking and that it was time for a break. So I sat still. And in those moments, the flood gates opened. Here came the rush of everything I had suppressed, fast and all at once. Sometimes this would cause me to drink, other times it would just cause me to sleep. But it never caused me to continue to sit still and face it. I knew that as soon as my body and brain was recharged I just had to keep running again.

And so I did.

I met so many great people. I did so many great things. And throughout all of it, there was someone next to me the whole time, someone who wasn't just myself. My dog. She was the only one I told my secrets to - the only one I let see me cry about my past. I saw dark times, I felt seriously dark twisted feelings, but no matter what I felt, she was always down for a walk. And she listened and gave me that knowing look she always did. The one that had me convinced she knew exactly what I was saying.

One night I came home, belly full of whiskey, heart full of laughs, and I noticed you were gone. One of my roommates had let you out and forgotten about you. I feared you were out there in the night, all alone, feeling the same way I felt in 8th grade when my mom forgot to pick me up from basketball practice so I walked 3 miles in the rain.

It was worse. You were dead.

A cop found me yelling out your name, walking down the main road. He said he had some bad news. He was right.

When I cried for you, I cried for the past too. And so here I am now, at your favorite place on Earth, in the same town where the thing that started it all happened, wondering if you know just how thankful I am for what you did for me. Because I truly believe that you knew the only way I was really going to heal, is if the wound was so deep I couldn't help but stitch it back up.

As I lie in this familiar field, I know this feeling is different. Yes, I am emotionally exhausted, but for once, I don't feel burnt out. You see, each time a match burns out, it loses some of itself, making the next time more difficult for it to light. And then eventually, the match is gone completely, and you're left with nothing but darkness and a lack of light to shine on your path. This time, I used the match to light a candle. And that candle burned slowly until it couldn't anymore. It shed most of its wax.

But I'm okay with some leftover wax. You can always use it to make another candle. It might be different, but it burns just as bright of a flame. And so I look up at the sky and think about what a wonderful new candle I've become, and how to create it I had to do a little less work with the help of some leftover wax.