There's a sorrow in my heart. Things have improved so much in the past few weeks, and I'm so grateful. I feel so much more calm, at peace. And yet there's still this sorrow poking at the side of my heart, like a delicate fish bone caught in your throat while you're at a dinner party. It's not big enough to cough up, and not thin enough to swallow. It's this abnormal size, and every time you swallow, you feel a sharp tinge. And the only thing you can do is to try swallowing thick bread, in hopes that it will wash it down. That's what this sorrow is like. Only this sorrow isn't in my throat, and can't go away with a swallow or two. This sorrow is deep inside, and I'm not sure how to access it.
I guess I've begun to realize how much is out of my control, and how little I have, not emotionally, and not in an abstract sense. No, I'm rich in all the things that really matter, like family and love and faith. What I don't have is the superficial, the things that "don't bring happiness." Basic luxuries, like a predictable living situation. Like a steady income, like....why can't I even say it? Like money. I'm so broke, and so in debt.

You grow up thinking that as long as everything else is there, as long as you have all that matters emotionally, money is insignificant. You grow up thinking you'll be happy with less. But then when you have less (and by less, I mean living off money you don't have), you start to be overcome by this disease. You start to be taken over by numbers. Numbers! They're everywhere! $3 for blueberries. $2 for a bus ride home, so that I don't have to feel like my bones are breaking from cold. $.75 is how much I paid for the last three hours of heating in my flat. $10 for a toaster. $ 2 for a Latte, 1.80 for an Americano.$8 for dinner with friends. $4 for warm house socks. Everything is numbers. What you eat, what you wear, where you sleep, what you bathe with, what you walk in, what you talk in. They're everywhere. The moment you open your eyes, like a pack of wolves, like a bug infestation...and all of a sudden come 11:30pm, you realize you've spent so much of your day just making choices and navigating between numbers, constantly deciding whether your comfort is worth it, whether your craving is worth it, whether you deserve it this time....and it becomes like a sharp bone rooted deep inside of you, jabbing every time you make a move, make a choice, and you start to feel so injured and so vulnerable and so so so so so ugly for even thinking about it as much as you do, because everything in your life is telling you to have faith in your future, and yet you just can't let go of reading the numbers.