Summer Will Come

It will be bright, and the days long

Darci Ann Burdett
4 min readJan 31, 2018

The urge to run develops in my mind and runs like lightning down to my limbs. My eyes stare at the face of my love, and into the great unknown.

How did I get here? Didn’t I tell myself I wouldn’t do this again? I find myself, again, crippled with fear at losing love. Terrified that things will change, or patience will wear thin and I will again become nothing more than a nagging, dramatic girlfriend. I fear and urge to run is strong. But still I sit.

Progress

It’s been nearly a year since my death and so much has changed. Each day I discover some new unhealthy thought that I had no idea was in my mind. It’s like that magic trick where they endlessly pull the kerchief out of their pocket; I find one issue with my thinking (I think all adults yell when angry and will yell at me, regardless of environment or appropriateness) and as I pull on it, others come out (I think that if someone is smarter than me, that makes me not smart at all). With each disordered thought that flows out of my pocket and onto the ground, I feel lighter.

The decades of chaos slip away. I no longer hear that howling cry on Christmas Day. I know that people can love you, and not be doing what’s best for you. With each memory that fades, it’s replaced by something delicate and sweet: Kisses after Good Wave, and morning coffee on the Island. Still, how did I get here?

Past

Eleven months ago, I made the hardest call of my life. I sat down in the park and had a conversation I’d been avoiding for nearly two years. We were ill-matched, and so stubborn that we were surely killing everything good in each other. I had asked to move out only to be told that my solutions were offensive. I saw no other way. I swore to myself that I wouldn’t date again until I could ensure that my PTSD wouldn’t be more than I could handle. I swore I’d never live with someone again that I wasn’t married to. I made my vows, rented a storage container, and moved out. I killed myself just a few weeks later after an argument with a building mate who I’d always seen as the epitome of safety and unconditional acceptance.

Present

When I came to, three days later (and by “came to”, I mean, was once again able to encode memory), everything felt different. I knew I had been through the worst of whatever I was going through. I can’t remember my rationale, but I took up rafting. I think I did it as kind of a “fuck you” to my previous self, who had to be begged to get into the water, and definitely didn’t do it of her own will.

Now I wake up in a home bathed in sunlight. The love and support I receive from my friends and colleagues is something I never understood existed before March 24th. Each time I catch myself internally cowering at my imagined fear of authority figures, I find myself glowing with pride later. Prior to March, I wouldn’t have noticed that I was afraid. All of my emotions came through as “uncomfortable” and I always reacted before trying to figure out the root cause.

Take this week for example, I spent most of yesterday on a downward spiral in my head over the negative feelings of others. People’s advice is always, “don’t worry about it, let it go.” So I spent my time wondering why I couldn’t. What I discovered is that shrugging off other’s opinions only works if you don’t value that person. I value all people, and usually, equally. I’ve been told that this doesn’t work in society.

Additionally, I can’t negate their opinions, because I don’t have a solid self-identity. I don’t view myself as kind, because I’m sometimes rude, and I don’t view myself as smart, because I know there are so many things I don’t know. So if someone calls me a bitch, it could be true, and if someone calls me stupid, it could be. Again, I am told that this is disordered thinking, and again, I feel proud of myself for seeing it on my own.

Conclusion

In the end, I’ve come so far in the last year and I can feel that I’m on the edge of no longer needing to concern myself with my past mistakes and the opinions of others. Soon, summer will arrive and it will feel like this life, the life where I’m loved and cherished, well-fed and cuddled, is the only life I’ve ever lived. Some day soon, I won’t even continue to perpetuate the comedic value of trash cans on the curb or off, or GPAs. It’s all ending, and I’m ready for it.

always surv;ve | never surrender

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Darci Ann Burdett

Struggling millennial with a tendency to rant on delicate topics, with comma splices.