Trust the Fall

It’s not so easy to hold onto hope these days, as I no longer know what hope looks or feels like. Similar to faith, I’m not sure that I have much hope anymore. I’m not sure I know how to.

They say that healing gets easier with time. They say that time heals wounds. They say to have faith and to have hope and that things will get better. Well, they may get better, but they certainly don’t get easier and no amount of time seems to change that.

We’re creeping up on a year since I responded to Alex’s suicide. I can’t believe it’s been this long, because for me, it still feels like yesterday. I still live in that moment. It’s never ending.

Those close to me tell me to pray about it and trust that god will make the chaos and sadness right again. But I can’t do that. How can I pray to a god that I no longer know that I believe in? How can I trust that a god that may not be real can possibly make this chaos and sadness right again? I don’t believe that anything can make this right. Nothing about this is right. Nothing and no one can turn back the clock and make this right because that would mean bringing Alex back to life. That would mean that Alex didn’t have any demons to fight.

I believe the only thing that I can do right now is to trust the fall. I’ve fallen from the height of a job that I loved, a community that I belonged to, a family I’d built, and pure happiness to the only thing that I know now: depression.

I’ve spiraled into drunken stupors, violent fits of anger and aggression directed toward those I love, and out of faith and hope that I once held so dear.

I have to trust the fall though. Because if I can’t trust this fall, that I’m supposed to be here for some strange reason, I don’t know that I will ever be able to trust in anything or anyone again.

I’m fighting to survive and I’m fighting to get out of bed. The fall feels familiar, so I cling to it. I know I am meant to rise, and to do so, I must trust the fall.