for the past 2 days i’ve been sitting alone outside on a red muskoka chair in my mom’s garden building this website. the sun is slightly too blinding to see my laptop screen and i’ve got a killer farmer’s tan coming on, but i feel almost normal today, like i haven’t spent the past month ruminating on the nature of my own solitude. i tend to spiral when sorting through old thoughts and words, but strangely enough it has not happened yet. and right now, i’m asking myself, is there a chance i’ve healed a little? because healing is still a relatively unfamiliar feeling to me, and i’m not entirely sure where the timeline begins and ends. it isn’t built into me the way a repetitive dwelling is, or a comfortable, “this-is-just-the-way-things-are” kind of acceptance of garbage feelings. i’ve yet to loosen my grip on the familiarity of past pain. but i felt completely stuck for months and suddenly i don’t anymore, and i wonder if this is it. i wonder if i’ve reached the top of the cliff, or begun the climb, or packed the bag and slung it across my back. i know healing can’t possibly be this linear and straightforward, and that i couldn’t possibly expect to be perfect and fine now that i’ve seen the tiniest inkling of normalcy. but today, i feel something i haven’t felt in a long time: hope. i am hopeful. for myself, for the world and everything in it. i don’t care if it lasts 5 minutes or a day or a week because for now i am here, and i am real, and i feel a soft glow at the pit of my stomach. it’s barely there. i have to dig really really deep to see it. but still, nonetheless. today, i glow.