Finding beauty was hard.
Almost elusive.
Sometimes I couldn’t tell if it was real or just a fairy tale I invented to survive the day.
I went looking anyway—digging through the void, hoping for a glimpse of something good. The mind is clever like that. It creates gaps. Holes. Missing pieces. It edits reality to protect itself from trauma, from ugliness, from what would otherwise shatter it completely.
Chaos lives loud in the brain. The noise wraps itself around you, presses in, leaves no quiet corners. You search desperately, and then—sometimes—it appears.
Not dramatically.
Not with fireworks.
Sometimes it arrives quietly. Neat. Wrapped with a bow.
A sliver of a beautiful memory, buried deep in the catacombs. The moment is fleeting. The details don’t always come back. Just the sensation—a small electric twinge up the spine.
I was happy once.
Briefly.
Other times the memory doesn’t sneak in—it hits. Like a freight train. A sudden realization that there was beauty in my life once. That this pain didn’t always exist in this shape.
Sounds.
Tastes.
Smells.
The feeling of a hug. A kiss. A real connection.
And then the doubt creeps in.
Was it real?
Or was it a scene from a movie I stitched into my memory because I needed to feel normal? Because I needed anything to drown out the despair, the hopelessness, the quiet embarrassment of a life gone wrong.
Poor choices followed. Fueled by anger. Fear. Desperation. One stacked on top of another until I was buried beneath the enormous weight of my own what-the-fuck decisions.
At first, they were small fires. Manageable. Almost harmless.
But with every choice, the flames grew. Bigger. Hotter. Until I was surrounded. Until I was engulfed.
I could never quite get it right.
Staring into the fire, I still catch glimpses—brief flashes—of choices that were once beautiful. Thoughts piercing through the black hole.
My children.
Friends.
My job.
Cherished possessions.
They feel just out of reach, but I’m certain they’re still there. I gather all my strength and try to pull just one thing free. Just one. To hold it. To prove something survived.
And there it is.
From a time long gone.
Still beautiful.
For a moment, my mind quiets. The pain loosens its grip. I remember that I did do well sometimes. That I wasn’t always failing. That I was capable of beauty—even if I didn’t know how to protect it.
And I wonder:
If I could find more of it—
more beauty—
maybe it wouldn’t erase the pain…
…but maybe it could help me live beside it.
This is dedicated to a new friend who lit the match that sparked this story — not to burn me down, but to help me see in the dark again. Thanks J.
Read more about the mess I’ve been trying to survive, →