The Waiting Room

by Emily Bleeker

There was so much pain in the world; she couldn’t figure out why more people weren’t weeping constantly.

For some reason she couldn’t seem to grasp that depression wasn’t something you just snapped out of.

The only thing worse than being crazy was having other people see that you were crazy.

She missed his arms comforting her when she was sad and his mind meeting hers in the spaces between confusion and reality when she was scared.

Her greatest regrets were found in the spaces between her choices, in the void of inaction that had slowly devoured her life.

You eventually learn to live with the pain. That’s what grief is—living with pain. Time doesn’t heal all wounds; it just builds up your resistance.”

Pains and struggles are not comparable. I don’t have some measuring stick I take out when you leave to see who has the most heartbreaking story. You get to feel what you feel, Veronica. And then we work on what we can control.

she’d started understanding that it was true—no one planned these things, not even God. Terrible things happened, and sometimes there was nothing you could do about it.

Remembering would never stop hurting, but it would never stop filling her up either.

Forgiveness was a funny thing—you gave it, but it also gave back to you.