Today was...

June 8th 2024 

As mandated by my therapist I will be writing a gratitude journal every day for three months. It’s supposed to help with my bad mood that everyone is calling depression. Let’s see, today I started the morning by going to therapy so already off to a bad start. Then I went to my job at the city library. The AC shut down and it was a ninety-degree weather kind of day, no clouds. It was so hot I felt like I could’ve passed out from the heat, but I didn’t. So I guess that’s one good thing that happened today. 

June 10th 2024

My therapist found out I wasn’t writing in my journal every day so now she is going to check every day even if we don’t have a session scheduled. Wonderful. There was summer rain all day today. It would’ve been nice. Had the weather app warned me. But nope, Sunny day in the low eighties it said. Boss decided to host an outdoor book fair because of the foretold “Nice” weather. Ten minutes hadn’t passed until I saw the first dark little circles appear on the pavement. I looked on as I heard raindrops hit the covers of books I had spent the last hour arranging. I managed to get about half of them out of the rain with minimal wetness. The others were soaked but not beyond saving. 

I suppose the good thing that happened today was that I didn’t have to interact with all the people that would’ve gone to the fair. At Least that’s what I thought but a lot of them showed up anyway so we held an indoor one like the ones they held in elementary school. It was a huge hassle to try to set everything up again inside but seeing this many people excited about a local book fair…It wasn’t bad. 

June 11th 2024

It’s Tuesday, what a terrible realization to start off the morning. My coffee machine broke. I almost never use it, I usually go to the local shop called Coffee House. But the fact that it broke anyway was pretty annoying. Went to therapy today, same as usual. She asked me how I’d been feeling, and I said I was fine. She says I'm lying but with unfortunately not so few words. She pointed out that if I was fine I wouldn’t have told Elise all of those bad thoughts that I had. Turns out that talking about my feelings with my friend was a terrible mistake, look at where I am now. 

After that torture was over I went to the bookstore. It doubled as a cafe. It’s a nice spot, or it was but now that school is on summer break all the kids come in and don’t know how to read silently. No, they’re not yelling or causing a commotion but hearing them talk about the books they’re reading is very distracting. Especially yesterday this kid was telling his friends about a book he was reading about a zombie plague outbreak in medieval times. That sounds interesting! I forgot to write down the title, I’ll do it after I'm done writing here. A good book recommendation, I guess that’s one good thing today.

June 12th 2024

Met up with Elise today. It was not something I was looking forward to when she texted me that she wanted to talk. I mean the text I got in the morning said “We need to talk” and that is universally understood as bad news right? She’s my coworker at the library. No, she’s my friend. My only real friend in this town. There are a lot of people who are friendly with me, Mrs. Anders from The Coffee House. Alexa, my boss at the Library. Mr. Carlo from the Bakery, and Mr. Lee from the Bookshop/Cafe. But Elise is the only one I actually went out of my way to spend more time with. Then she went and signed me up for therapy when I vented a little, who does that? Anyway, I didn’t tell her that cause I know she did it out of concern and not to be annoying. 

We met at Mr. Lee’s, she asked me how therapy was going. I said fine, she said I was lying in not so few words. Hm. She asked again, pressing harder to get the “truth” out of me. I said I was fine, I’m not sure what she wanted to hear. If I wasn’t homeless and didn’t have any broken bones or was terminally ill I was fine. Wasn’t I? She seemed more concerned than upset which was good for me. Not that I want her to be either of those things but I definitely prefer her not being angry. Though the subject was not one I would’ve picked it was nice talking to her after so long. Her other job as a high school English teacher keeps her busy. That talk left me drained in every way possible. I was ready for bed before the night was fully dark. I heard my phone ping from an incoming message. It was Elise, 

Please keep your promise and take this therapy seriously. I know you find it annoying but I do think it's something that will help you a lot. Let me know if you need anything ok?

  Hm. That felt…pretty nice.

June 13th 2024

Ah Thursday, used to be my third favorite day of the week. My high school used to let us leave school early on Thursdays. Now I work my second part-time job at Mr. Lee’s. The job itself isn’t bad and the fact I get a discount on the cafe items and books is a good plus. Summertime is when I start to regret working here. Kids, Kids, Kids all over the place. Not putting the books back where they belong. Not even attempting to clean up after themselves in the cafe area, leaving crumbs all over the place with the occasional splatter of coffee or tea. Mr. Lee is a good boss, asks me every week what hours I'm available to work, and accommodates me, especially with the therapy. 

I noticed a kid looking at the action section for a while, he would pick up a book, read the back, and then place it back. After doing that for an hour I decided to approach him, against my better judgment. I asked him if I could help him find something, he replied with “A good book”. I wanted to facepalm myself right then and there. I had to remind myself that he was just a high schooler who didn’t know anything yet. I asked him what he’d read before, and he replied that he hadn't. Ah kids these days, not that I read much when I was his age either. 

So we started with what his favorite action movies were, and then I recommended a book based on that. It wasn't long after he left that Elise dropped by. We chatted for a bit, her about work and me about the books I was currently reading. After sitting for a while in silence she asked me if I'd spoken to my parents recently. I said no, she asked if I planned to, I said no. When I got back home I looked at the last message I sent to my parents out of curiosity. It was two months ago, sounds about right. 

Today was a complicated day.

June 14th 2024

Friday, the second most desired day of the week for most people. For me, it was just another day. Actually, for me today is a bit special but it doesn't really matter. Today was my day off so I decided to do something a bit different. Considering what day it was and that my overall mood when I woke up this morning was bad I decided to do something drastic. Drugs…I'm kidding, I decided to get away. There was a very popular trail about an hour away from here that a lot of people go to during the summer that takes you through the woods and leads you to a waterfall. I decided to go on a different trail that not many know about that also takes you through the forest but leads you to a small river. 

At the start of the trail I turned my phone off so that I wouldn’t be disturbed. I played some soothing acoustic music on my phone without headphones so that I could still hear the sounds of nature. There's just something soothing about listening to a classical guitar or piano harmonizing with the sound of the wind that carries the songs of birds. It made me forget about my troubles and trauma. My wants and desires. It trapped me in the here and now, not in a way that felt like shackles but in a way that felt that I belonged. The smell of the earthy dirt and trees. The crunch and snaps of fallen leaves and branches. The rays of sun that poked through the forest’s canopy. It all felt so far from everything that I was dealing with. It was a nice feeling.

I had only been there once before but It felt just as amazing to see the river again. The rocky river bed was decorated with wildflowers. I set up a folding chair in a perfect spot where a tree grew towards the river. I was able to rest my feet in the water while still enjoying the shade of the tree. I sat there till the sun turned red over the horizon, listening to the song of the woods.  

Today was nice.   

June 15th 2024

Elise called in the morning to yell at me. She was quite upset that I didn’t tell her it was my birthday yesterday. I was always one of those people who thought it was extremely weird and awkward to tell people that it was your birthday. She nagged my ear off for about half an hour then wished me a belated happy birthday then hung up. Well now I know, it's not like my parents called or even texted me yesterday so of course I didn’t expect Elise to care that much either. The rest of the day was oddly pleasing. I worked both my Library and Bookstore jobs today and at both places a lot of people wished me a late happy birthday. A lot of customers from both places also wished me happy birthday, they called out to me by my name. I didn’t realize that many people actually knew who I was. 

Elise picked me up after my last shift and we watched my favorite movie at her house, How To Train Your Dragon. Call me childish if you want. I will always think that it is one of the greatest movies of all time. 

Ever since I moved into this town I felt like an outsider. Not because the people shunned me or anything, they were all very nice and welcoming. I guess It's because I moved out here alone. If Elise never approached me I wouldn’t have any real friends. It’s been a year since I moved here, and today it finally felt like home. 

June 16th 2024

I thought I could handle it. I thought I could pretend today would be just like any other bad or okay day. I couldn't, I called in sick from both jobs and then turned my phone off. My soul left and it took all possible joy with it. I pulled out my brother’s dog tags from my nightstand drawer. It’s been a year since he died overseas. My parents didn’t know how to handle it, I tried to comfort them but I didn’t know how. I needed someone to talk to but all my friends at the time couldn’t help. They said words and smiled as if their voices were the ones I wanted to hear. They hugged me as if that would fix what broke inside. My older brother was my best friend, we did everything together growing up, and boy did we also get on each other's nerves.

He was talented at almost everything but I never felt envious towards him. He acted in a way that made it impossible for me to do so. I never doubted that he loved me, not even for a second. The day we got the news it almost felt like a bad joke. I was half expecting him to come out from behind a bush and say “Gotcha!”. My mom didn’t cry hysterically and my dad didn’t turn into a drunk. They both just shut down. Like there was no outside world anymore, they didn’t care about anything. Including their remaining son. They were grieving and they needed help but so did I. They were MY parents, they were supposed to look out for ME.

      I was angry at them for a while, until I told them I would be moving away. I couldn’t move on from my brother’s death if I had to look at the same faces they had the day they were told he died. When I told them I was moving they looked at me. Not just with their eyes but with their souls. It was the first time I felt like my parents truly acknowledged that I was still there. Even then it was hard for them to speak to me. At this point I wasn’t angry anymore. They helped me pack my things and when I was all ready they both pulled me in a tight embrace. My mother shook but didn’t cry, My father tensed but didn’t lecture. The only words they said as a farewell were “We love you”, and “We’re sorry”. I didn’t cry then, I wasn’t angry with them but I no longer felt sympathy for them either. But as I sat on my bed remembering those words, tears started to fall.

They didn’t know, how could they have? How could any parent know how to deal with the death of their child and how to comfort the one they had left? I cried, I lived alone so I had no reason to hold back. I screamed, I screamed out all my pain and regret, all my sorrow and anger. I didn’t hear Elise knocking on the door, I didn’t hear her hurried steps to my bedroom. But I felt her arms wrap around me. I felt the warmth and the comfort of her saying “It’s ok,”. 

Embarrassingly enough I cried myself to sleep like a child. I woke up leaning on Elise who was also asleep. It was late afternoon by then. When I stood up I felt empty, but in a good way. The weight of all the anger and sadness that I had been greedily hoarding was gone. When I realized that, my eyes watered a bit, relief. This must be what relief feels like. I started to laugh which woke up Elise. She asked me how I was feeling, I said I felt good and for the first time she didn’t tell me I was lying. We went out to eat, joked, and laughed till the others around us started to give annoyed looks. She dropped me off at my house and wished me a goodnight. I wished her the same. As I write this I am not sure if tomorrow will be a good day or not. I’m not sure if the weather will be nice, I’m not sure if someone will annoy me. I’m not sure if I’ll face countless inconveniences.  Regardless of what happens tomorrow, I will do something that I haven't done in a long time. I’ll wake up with a hope that it will be a good day.