Tempest of the Mind

The thunder rolls through the valleys of your forgotten memories; it threatens to rip your defenses apart. Soon you know that you’re going to be forced to reminisce on those thoughts you’ve long since abandoned…or have you forgotten them at all? No, I fear they were there all along, pounding away at the safe you kept locked away from the world. I wonder, does anyone know the combination? Is there a password or a number that can force you to spill the contents to the unsuspecting crowd? I wonder what you’re afraid of; what has brought you to such a fragile state? What has caused this madness, this storm that rages in your mind and your mind alone?

The thunder promises rain, and that scares you more than you’d like to admit to yourself. If you admit it, then it must be true. This is your reality, and you’ll make of it what you like. The walls of your room start to crumble around you, seeming just as fragile as you can’t admit you that you are. The lightning strikes, causing a small fire to emerge in the center of the floor. You’re not scared of it; you know that it’s just your own anger trying to engulf everything you hold dear in flames. You know you can control it; it’s just a matter of figuring out how you should do so. You don’t want to be permanently damaged by a figment of your own imagination, do you? What a question, of course you don’t.

The wall of flames grows taller, and you notice that the crumbing walls are now turning to ash. You’re really frightened now, you know how the saying goes, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” You know it’s true, so why aren’t you trying to control yourself? The smoke that envelops you causes you to rethink your strength against your own anger. You’re being smothered by something you thought you could tame, so why aren’t you moving? Why is it that you sit there with that smug look on your face, while everything around you ignites? You’re being controlled; you can’t even realize it. More lightning strikes and illuminates the room. Your family is out there, why aren’t you trying to control the anger, the flames, to protect them? Is it true…do the flames really have that kind of power over you?

Then the rain comes. The clouds overhead spill their contents, pouring all of your uncertainties upon everything around you. Doubt takes over. There’s no stopping the flood that’s threatening to surround you. You lay on your bed in a fetal position, immersed in your comforters. Say, if they’re called “comforters,” why is it that they’re not doing the job they were designed for? They’re not comforting you at all. The tears swell up in your eyes, and you immediately take another hit on your self-esteem. These memories, they weren’t supposed to threaten you anymore. You thought you could control the amount of pain that came with their remembrance. You were wrong.

The wind starts to howl, the whole world around you is in complete disarray. You’re completely alone in a deserted wasteland. Your room is lying in pieces around you, the only things whole are the bed on which you sit, and the dressers you once put your clothes into. There’s no ceiling, and you don’t care enough to try to remember what happened to it. You’re so lost and confused, how did you get here? You’ve never been to a desert in your life; this can’t possibly be from your own mind. It seems so real, how did you create such a desolate place? It must have been there all along. This must be your insides after you put all the harmful memories in that safe we were thinking about. There’s nothing left of you without those memories, they created you, they were you…are you. You’re nothing without the memories and moments that made you who you are. This proves it. This must have been what everyone else saw.

You’re wrong again. It starts to snow all over the dry, hard ground, causing the most chilling cold you’ve ever experienced. It cuts right to the bone. This must have been what others saw when they looked at you, looked into you; nothing but a cold-hearted human, as empty inside as she felt. You need to fix this, this isn’t at all what you expected, or even wanted. You want to feel whole again, how are you supposed to make that happen? Come on, you know you can fix this. For real this time.

You’re going to face it, this time. Don’t let the past haunt you, you need to accept it without letting it ruin you completely. Those memories, they can’t control you, but you need to know that you can’t completely control them either. They’re apart of you, and just as wild and untamed as your formerly existing mindset. Let them come and go as they please, just be ready for them; they need to be aware that they can’t hurt you anymore. You know that they’re as alive as you are; they breathe and feed just as you do.

You realize slowly that you’re in your room again, and it’s whole. The walls are going back to their normal, creamy white color, the paint no longer in patches, no longer peeling. You sit and stare in awe as the world around you suddenly starts to rebuild itself. All the snow has melted, leaving fresh green grass growing in its wake. There is no smoldering carpet, no burn marks where the fire made contact. Your ceiling has even been replaced; you’ll never take that ceiling for granted again. Comforters? You don’t need comforters. You push them off of you and take your first steps as a human reborn with a new mindset. The sun starts to shine into your windows, the streams blinding you, but you don’t complain. The sun is just a way for you to prove to yourself that the dark cloud that had torn your flesh, refusing to let you get to a safe place, has been lifted.

You feel a sense of satisfaction of dare you even think it? …happiness. You’re so used to everything turning wearisome and tedious the second you think that term; happiness. A smile slowly crawls across your face. You know what this means. If you can say the term happiness to yourself, even feel it, without everything turning lackluster, without a storm making its way to you and enveloping you in depression, you know you can conquer anything you set your mind to. You can control it now. You can control them now. You realize it will be difficult, that not everything happens as soon as you want it to. However, you think to yourself, this thought isn’t going to hold you back anymore. You can wait; you can let things come to you in time. You’re going to have to work for the happiness; you can’t just expect it to come to you in your time of need. Your smile becomes blindingly bright. Such a beautiful smile. Let it be seen more often, let them know you’re going to be okay.