I slept in my mother's bed last night. I was watching a movie and I consciously slipped to sleep, the comfort wearing over me like a blanket. The feeling was warm and friendly, one that I did not try to run away from. It is a surprising fact because being the person I am, I run away from feelings all the time.
And more often than not, I run straight into them.
As I allowed myself to grasp the hem of sleep, a thought rushed to my head, as if it would miss the station if it were a second late. The final thought that tucked me to sleep; I have felt this way before, there is a sense of familiarity somewhere in here.
Ironically, I woke up with the same thought, attached with it, half an answer.
The last time that I slept in my mother's bed, I wished to be buried under layers of blanket, my eyes ached with the weight of the world (I still wonder why I put it there in the first place). I slept because I had no other means to escape, I was okay on the outside. I was meant to be okay, nothing was wrong.
Except that under the surface, I could hear some creaking. Similar to when an earthquake starts but it hasn't reached its full intensity.
The roof hasn't fallen yet, but it's about to.
I did not know I would be stuck in a depressive loop for the upcoming year, I did not know I would try to swim through self-help books trying to save my life. I also didn't know that I would long to be understood and eventually healed.
All I knew was that there was a sense of comfort underneath those blankets, absolute comfort. Somewhere I could creep in and hide from the world barging in on me. Close my eyes and pretend like it was quiet inside my head. Please be quiet inside my head.
What I did not know was that comfort was a sweet goodbye - the last delightful meal a prisoner gets before he's hanged.
So I think it's funny that such a thing as comfort or a warm bed is destined to be the reminder of an ache. But then I wonder if it really is an ache, or was there a sense of home attached to it? A sense of home attached to the preceding chaos.
Every time I feel pained, I grimly smile to myself because it feels so pretty and so close. As though I've felt some resemblance of this feeling all my life and I've found the core of it.
Maybe the truth is that, as human beings, we're wired to protect ourselves, against everything that pains, everything that is uncomfortable. And so, we're running since the moment that we're born.
That's all we do.
Run. Run. Run.
Then suddenly your ankle twists and you fall. There's blood, there's so much blood. The wound is wide open and the sharp wind brushes against it. The world seems ruthless, why me? why now? I've been running all my life.
That's all I've ever done.
Yet here I am, bleeding. Bleeding for God's sake. ME!
And then the realization catches up, slowly but gradually - I don't have to keep running anymore. There's nothing to protect myself against, it has all caught up. The monster instilling fear is no longer a shadow.
The blood is now comfort. It is a breath of relief and despair, intertwined in one. I can not tell the two apart. It is all the years lost to fear. Fear of pain.
I did not know that polar opposite realities could coexist. Yet, there it was - torment and ease colliding.
Perhaps that's what it was. The comfort of my mother's bed was the intimately familiar feeling of being wrapped into the arms of defeat, knowing that there was no further I could fall.
The sweetness of giving in pain is synonymous with bliss.