Breathing.

Your breath catches, then deepens, and starts to come in hard and fast little gasps.

The air seems to be warmer as your body heats up from the inside out.

Your eyes flutter closed, and snap open at some stimulus that shoots through you like an electric current.
Agony or ecstasy?

Ecstasy.

When it's agony, I go cold. Much like I did the other night while writing about how I felt I was committing life suicide. I stayed up that night and all through the next day. For nearly 48 hours. I greeted the dawn, and it was lovely. I can't remember the last time I did that. I forced myself to go down and hit the bottom, some internal rock bottom that had nothing to do with anyone else but me. I hate that I had to do that to find my way, my center, my motivation, my self - again, but apparently that's what the situation called for. A little self loathing, (ok, maybe a lot of it) mixed with total isolation really did the trick. This week has been entirely different, but I have conversely been afraid to come and say so out loud here. Still, fear is what got me into this mess, so here I am. I am different, I will continue to be different, and this is the real me.

I needed to remember that no one can make my life what I want but me. That smelling the roses a bit today is important, but planting seeds so I can smell them forevermore is just as important - if not more so on some days. This small principle (and thank you to Stephen King and my re-reading of The Dark Tower series during this dark time for me for the analogy) really applies to every single part of my life. Friendships, personal time, working out, school, work, family, everything.

I find it's harder to remember what being motivated feels like when my sleep gets more messy - which does happen fairly often for me. However, now that I can remember again what it's like to feel vital and driven again I'm holding on to that with everything I have. Time to go plant some damn seeds. ;)

Thank you so much for the comments to those who left them. I really appreciate it.