Call your friends. Let them sit with you (they don’t care about the state of your house, truly. No one cares. Your mess is endearing. You’re human. It happens.) Talk about stupid shit you used to do. Tell all your favourite stories, the ones that make you laugh. Remember how far you’ve come.

Kiss your pets. Water your plants. Repot that one you’ve been staring at as it slowly declines over the last month. This plant is not a metaphor. It’s just something that benefits from care. Just like you.

Throw out that mug you hate. Put flowers on your bedside table. Ask for help. Remember you are precious.

Stay off the internet for a minute. Read a book. Meditate. Even if it’s just taking 3 deep breaths.

Remember that one day at a time is a real and powerful thing. Remember that it won’t always be like this. And there’s comfort in that. And there’s something to treasure in that. Rest. Restore. Recover. Remember that it takes 72 hours after a triggering event for your brain chemistry to restore. Be patient.

Have a plan for when you’re feeling low, or anxious, or manic. Let folks close to you know what your plan is so they can support you. Support people: keep texting, calling and showing up. Even and especially when you don’t hear back. Consistency is key.

Remember, we’re all just walking each other back home.

On the night we met I was running away. It was mid winter. A night like a hunt. Full of tigers. What had we killed to be here?

Our eyes met across a crowded room, as they tell you they will, if you believe in that sort of thing. And so often, what you believe in ends up happening to you.

I used to live in a faux fur coat of questionable origin; wide lapels of deep cream, a swing of a thing. The outfit your ghost would wear, if you could be bothered to come back; if you hadn’t decided where to go; if you hadn’t yet remembered what you believed in, depending on how you went.

I was drinking whatever beer you could find sold for less than a dollar and locked into an argument about Beat Poets, as was the style of the time.

He was a poet, too, then. Though anything you once were you often are forever. Now I know we’re all poets at heart. I’ve met enough people and heard enough stories to know that’s true for a good hundred years. But he said he was, promised it into something greater than himself.

I’d said I was a writer once. I’d hoped to direct my life down that road, not knowing yet that life knows where it’s leading. It wasn’t as true as that I wrote. That’s the funny thing about bravery. When you say: I don’t feel very brave, but I try very hard.
Something answers back: What’s the difference?

I fell in love with him twice a day for 6 weeks. We had the same songs in us. That was enough. Until it wasn’t.

Years later, someone asked me why I thought anyone would want to talk to God. I said; because people have questions they don’t want to have to wait for life to answer.