Ray’s Rays, Number 21: Lost Daze, by Radiance Angelina Petro

Ray’s Rays, Number 21

Lost Daze

by

Radiance Angelina Petro

 

 

 

 

 

For me, they happen most in summertime.

Maybe it’s lying on the bed in my room

and hearing children playing somewhere in the distance,

or a lawn mower, or a breeze that rustles the drapes, and misses me entirely.

Lost days have been happening to me since the day

the traumas began. Not everyday, of course, but some days–

some days are like one long, lost, timeless drifting–a sort of

drowsiness, a kind of loneliness that is crushing.

Sometimes it helps—the old adage: Move a muscle, change a thought.

Sometimes it helps to go for a walk. And sometimes,

this deep sense of being inside a lost day is a horrible

manifestation of my clinical depression, and no adage

or activity will help. Somehow, I have to ride the wave,

or drift with the wave, or somehow not drown in the wave.

And there are days when the wave takes me under

and I am barely alive when it spits me up on the shore

whenever it’s through with me.

Being bi-polar, there is another kind of lost day.

It’s the one when the mania grabs me in its jaws

and thrashes me around. It’s when I go shopping

in wild, dangerous spending sprees—spending time

and money indoors—going from place to place–

being outside only long enough to go from car to store

and store to car. I sense the day is happening—the sun,

the blue sky, the lazy bobbing dragonflies landing on the car,

and I can’t stop. The wave is pushing me—forcing me

to move and, without thinking, I lose myself, and my money,

in an empty, wasted day. When I get home I look at what I bought

and am most often like–”Why did I buy that?” Mania

does that to me, and no amount of deep breathing

or mindfulness can slow me down. It’s terrifying.

I have lost many days to depression and/or mania,

and it sucks. It is a deep hopelessness and loneliness

that hollows the bones and causes me to lose myself–

a tasteless, formless dissociation that drifts in and out of the window.

So, what do I do when depression steals my day (or days)?, or when

mania hijacks my day (days)? I do my best, as I said above–

to try and ride it out. In the case of mania—I hold on for dear life.

In depression, I sleep—let the day lift itself away.

With both mania and depression, I keep taking my meds.

I stay as close to trusted people as possible. And, it’s

not easy—and often seems impossible. Somehow,

I am still here. I hope you are too. Ride out the wave.

No matter the existential feelings, you’ll be glad you did.

You are strong, even in weakness. You have rode many waves

and made it to the shore. This one will be no different.

You will survive, and perhaps, riding the waves will become

closer to surfing.

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