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In order to write a great story, you must have three elements; a beginning, a middle, and an end. Traditionally we have been taught to start at the beginning, work our way into the middle, then rising action, climax, falling action, the end! However in my experience, the best stories are the ones that begin at the end. “The end” that I am referring to, is different for everyone, everyone has a tipping point, a come to moment, an “I’m sick of living this way” moment, a moment where we analyze ourselves, and truly are vulnerable with ourselves, which I have found in my own experience is the hardest person to be honest with. After you’ve reached the bottom, and have made the promise to yourself to get on your hands and knees and begin to stand again, is the time you transcend into the your beginning, and continue to live the rest of your life in the middle of your story, because a great story has no ending.
I began my story on Monday, April 27, 2015, the day I found the strength to let someone know that I was weak, and in need of help. As cliché as it is to say “asking for help is strength”, it is one of the truest statements I know, because the morning I made my journey across campus to the Ball State Counseling Center, I was physically shaking, my heart was racing, and my anxiety had never been higher, but I never turned around, no matter how much the frightened voice in my head instructed me to.
As it turns out, healing your spirit is similar to having a cold, it gets a whole lot worse before it begins to get better, and sometimes the medicine you take metaphorically speaking for therapy, knocks you on your ass and makes you feel disoriented, and worn out, but you keep taking it, because you know it’s supposed to make you feel better. In our quick fix society, it’s hard to wait out the storm before we stumble upon a rainbow, but when it’s finally there, and you feel the warmth of the sun on your face, and the peace within you, every session spent crying, spilling your soul onto on a stranger’s couch, was worth it. I believe Sarah Kay, says it best in her TedTalk titled “If I Should Have a Daughter”,
“ …because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that's the way my mom taught me. That there'll be days like this.(Singing) There'll be days like this, my momma said. When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline,no matter how many times it's sent away.”
I look forward to sharing my never ending journey with you all, and hope that others will find strength through my struggles. Just remember, when the going gets tough, take a nap, then keep going. (:
Stay Sassy My Friends,
Chloe Maria