disillusionment

i am a coward. maybe. 

in my room i have a wooden box full of things i do not want to have to look at but cannot let go of, for various reasons. things that scare me. a cubic foot of terror. 

inside the box there are things that remind me of the one intrinsic truth about myself: i am afraid to be alone. i am not uncomfortable with loneliness; i accept that i must be lonely sometimes in order to really know how to be connected with others. no, i am afraid of being alone because, for me, to be alone is to be myself, and i do not understand what that means yet.

if i knew then maybe, just maybe, i would understand.

i'm sick of being a coward simply because i say i am. so i reach into the box. i push my hand past various pictures and a pair of white sunglasses and couple of armbands from mesa vista and several loose pieces of paper, and i stop at a composition book. clutched in my hand, it feels alright, so i take it out and close the box. for now.

my name is scrawled on the front of the notebook. it was given to me upon an admission to the mesa vista intensive care unit. i decide to open it up; i run my thumb along the edge, landing on a page somewhere in the middle. i let the book fall open in my hands and look down. inside is a message from another inpatient:

"without joy or misery i give you hope"

i gladly accept this gift. i close the notebook and place it back in the terrible box and leave my room and live.