When We Collided

by Emery Lord

But life surprises you. It tells you to close your eyes and blow out the candles, and then sometimes smashes your face into the cake before you can even make a wish.

But what I mean is, depression, it settles like a shadow over your body while you sleep, and it mutes every frequency into blankness, into fog.

To the deepest, most cellular level of my being, I resent people who believe that depression is the same as weakness, that “sad” people must be coddled like helpless toddlers.

My dark days made me strong. Or maybe I already was strong, and they made me prove it.

‘Ships are safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for’?”

“Oh, I imagine it’ll hurt less eventually. I think there will always be a hole, though. But lace is one of the most beautiful fabrics, you know. All those holes and gaps, but it’s still complete somehow—still lovely.”

This is where I am, somewhere between the night’s total darkness and the light’s utter brilliance,

Even the constellations can see us now: we are seventeen and shattered and still dancing. We have messy, throbbing hearts, and we are stronger than anyone could ever know.

“And I love math because there’s always a right answer. It’s not interpretive; it’s not subjective. There is a correct destination, even if you have to hack through confusing parts to get there. That’s not always true in life.”

I’m hopelessly earthbound, and I’m in no position to save anyone else.

I want to start my whole life again—like I want to float my soul back up to the cosmos and come down as a different girl, in a different life.

I don’t appreciate how often people hide their scars and doubts. Really, it’s not fair to people who are struggling, to go on believing that everyone else just has it totally together and never has one bad thought in their lives.

Sometimes I think my heart is made of rubber, and the world stretches it and twists so that it writhes in my chest and aches. This is why I have spent most of my time on this planet here but hurting. Sometimes I think a heart of porcelain would be easier. Let it drop out of my rib cage and break on the floor, no heartbeat, the end. Instead, I get a bouncy heart that bleeds when the world claws at it but keeps beating through the pain.

No matter what heaven you believe in, your time on this earth will end. What I’m saying is that you should listen—really listen—to the slosh of the waves and the distant call of Pacific birds. You should feel a boy’s pulse against your cheek; you should fill your lungs with ocean air. While you can, I mean. You should do these things while you still can.

My dad—how it still sometimes doesn’t feel real that he’s gone. How it makes me question everything.

because I am made of moondust and twinkle lights, because I’m impervious to the shortsighted mortality of my peers, to their finite days on this planet that they spend being closed-off and insecure and inert. No, no, no, I am more than this world, as wide as the trees all around me.

No, Viv, you're just manic

A few hard weeks in a great, big life. You can do that. We can do that.

I didn’t want to die. I was just trying to feel something.

And it was depression, but that’s just not all it was.”

Should have, should have, should have. I’m sick of those words biting at my ankles no matter where I walk.

I’m the riptide, and he’s a moon-eyed fool.

So what if I let these marks be passport stamps from where I’ve been—ones that don’t determine a damn thing about where I’m going next?

It’s like when the dentist numbs your mouth, and you can bite your lip or tongue without even realizing it. At first, it was almost funny, like—Ha-ha, look at this! I can’t feel anything. But then the sensation stayed gone, and I thought it might be forever, and I got desperate to feel anything.”

No one settles inside my shoes—inside my towering, beautiful shoes—and dances around, not even for a minute.

It’s an everything-finally-bursts cry. The kind that wrings out your spirit—a cleansing.

I scream for every time it’s felt impossible to get out of bed, for every time it’s felt hopeless, for every time I’ve felt out of control and terrified, for the guilt and unfairness.

But the point is that trying to make things better sometimes makes us better, too.

I’m trying to create good things in the midst of the bad. Grief or no grief.

“I’ve always loved the Wizard of Oz, you know? Every girl wants to be Dorothy Gale or maybe Glinda. I never wanted to be the tornado.”

Sad but strong. You can be both. And I am.

You’re the roots, darling. I’m the clouds. Our love will always be from afar.”

But finding each other was celestial, and this is how it must be.

My feelings have back rooms and trapdoors, and I’m still learning them.

I feel a little emptied out, but not exactly hollowed. Sometimes I feel empty like a new canvas.

That’s the thing they never tell you about love stories: just because one ends, that doesn’t mean it failed. A cherry pie isn’t a failure just because you eat it all. It’s perfect for what it is, and then it’s gone. And exchanging the truest parts of yourself—all the things you are—with someone? What a slice of life. One I’ll carry with me into every single someday.

It’s such a familiar scene that part of me expects to turn the corner and see my dad.

Maybe in my next life, I’ll be a wave in the ocean, and you’ll be a mountain, and we’ll spend years and years brushing up against each other. You’ll shift so painfully slowly, and some days I’ll crash right into you and other days I’ll approach gently, licking your sides. That sounds like us, doesn’t it?

Some of us go to therapy, some take medication, some have to carefully balance exercise and sleep to stay in a good place mentally. There are bad days. There are also best days: dinner parties, art galleries, vacations, and sunlit, sideways-laughing happiness. They can coexist. They do coexist.

But that’s the thing, isn’t it? I didn’t always see this as normal, and I worry that we’re not talking about mental health enough. And if we’re not talking about it enough, how can we possibly shine enough light into places that can feel very dark and very lonely?

But using your voice is a kind of strength that makes you powerful.

I see that a diagnosis isn’t a destination a doctor sticks you in but a road you walk—with agency, with travel companions if you wish. That journey can bring you closer to the people beside you and take you as far as you want to go. I believe this.

Because, even when it does not feel like it, more best days are always ahead. Claim them.