Autumn

The calendar says Autumn. The humid thirty-something days still say Summer. When I step onto the floor, the boards are damp underfoot. The air throbs with heat and moisture, and cicadas blare their approval.

External markers of time are perplexing. They seem out of kilter with my own experience. My body is paused, frozen in a season of its own, yet the earth continues its rhythms. The seasons turn, the moon rises, the sea wishes and washes, nothing is forever. I hold this in my mind and hope this relapse breaks soon.

There have been other relapses, too many to count. But this one is protracted. Several years in I’m starting to wonder: is this the new normal?

I was carving out a small, slow life for myself. I thought I was through the worst, that I’d never return to the long years of severity I had at the start. I thought the cycles of life had picked me up and deposited me in a place further along, that I could never go back there. Now I understand that the trip backwards can be fast, and the way out is slippery.

I want to hit the stop button on the outside world so I don't miss anything while I lay here, try to be patient, fail to be patient. I am always ready. Here in my season of waiting, I am ready.