When I Think of You

by Myah Ariel

“But one conversation with you left me feeling like I’d lived my whole life just sniffing air, not really breathing it. Not like you. I wanted to be like that—I wanted to be with someone like that. But I didn’t know how.”

Tragedy has a way of doing that, you know? Reminding you that you’re human and capable of being gutted.”

If I’m honest with myself, holding on to all that stuff after all this time feels like a choice. Like in doing so, I’m choosing to be weighed down. Now is as good an opportunity as ever to stop being a bag lady. Someone who hoards all her trauma and drama, packing it away in various bags for safekeeping. Carrying them along with her everywhere she goes so she can unfurl them from time to time, if only just to admire all her problems. It’s time to move on.

You take things as they are, and you make them better.”

Because when you’ve finally found what you’ve always wanted, that’s when things get scary.

But I’m beginning to see that sometimes the strongest people became that way simply by leading heavy lives.