Over And Over And Over.

Have you ever felt it?

Days where…

It feels like a constant struggle to push forward. That even if you put your best foot forward, it’s like you might as well be bringing both off the edge of a cliff.

Maybe…

Times where you genuinely and painstakingly question the meaning of life, of existing on this planet, of being around.

You know that you should keep going — because surely, everyone has a purpose or something to at least try to strive towards — but at the same time more thoughts keep weighing you down with why it might just all be in vain.

Am I unwanted? Unneeded? An unnecessary obstacle or burden to those who cross paths with me?

If you’re growing under the wary eye and disapproving glare of an emotionally unavailable parent, does that mean you’re just another mouth to feed, another disgusting waste of space that only regains clarity or becomes redeemable when you’re needed for something, or are useful to the objecting person in question?

Surely not. Surely if you hypothetically could surround yourself with a lighter crowd of people who appreciate you for who you are inside and outside, for what good you can bring despite your setbacks and flaws and mistakes and imperfections and bad decisions…

Surely you would realize you mean a lot to someone out there. To at least one other person living on this planet.

It’s hard to fully regain sense and your bearings during times like these.

Days where you can barely imagine the future of five, ten years ahead — heck, even a week or a month ahead — when just this one day feels like a mountain crushing you from the inside out, and then back again.

Over and over and over.

If you can piece together moments like these from your own life, maybe you’re going through something similar. Or have, for that matter.

I want to believe there is light at the end of the tunnel. That no matter how many times I get crushed and broken down little by little, that no matter how many times the same wounds get ripped open and abandoned with salt freshly poured to sting and burn at my core, at the crux of who I am or who I think I am, that something good — surely! — will come about.

And that every bad day brings me closer to the good day that will eventually become a good period, and finally, a good, consistent period of life.

Once and for all.

Maybe that’s why I continue reading so much, even as an adult now.

Because for whatever wishful thinking might result, some part of me desperately wants to believe — even if I can only vicariously feel it right now — that those stories of characters overcoming family abuse to find love, peace, a home among those who truly and unconditionally love and care about them…

Can actually become a reality.

For me. For you.

For everyone.

Because at the end of the day, I still have to remind myself…

Ending it all — by my hands — would only cut short a life that might be wonderful on the other side of this tunnel.

No matter how dark and horrid and painful it may be right in this moment.