Heavy

Some days are light and easy to carry.  Some are heavy and it is a struggle to get to the end.  On the worst days, the weight seems to be overwhelming.

The burden is always a strange thing.  It has no mass, no source, no form.  I cannot get my arms around it.  If I could grasp it then maybe it could be set aside, but as soon as I believe I have a handle, it changes form.   My friends and family can't see this burden and so they cannot offer help.  I carry it alone.  It frustrates me that I cannot see it myself.  Make no mistake, though it seems invisible to the eye, it exists, making me tired as I struggle against it, its weight pressing upon me, draining my energy.

In the quiet of the night, I feel the weight most keenly. Maybe I have brought it onto my own shoulders.  I don't remember hefting it.  Maybe it has grown over time, one little grain of sand after another until the weight became overwhelming.

I have my coping tools though.  I run.  I run a lot.  Sometimes I can outrun the feeling of dread and the pressure.  I run out from under it, for a while..., but it catches up.  When I'm running the weight seems manageable, least for a short time.  If I could no longer run I think the weight would crush me.

I realize that I'm not special.  Many people are burdened, struggling to get through the day.  I hope that this understanding through experience will help me become more aware of others that are struggling to manage their day to its end.  I hope I can see the weight someone is carrying and help them, for their sake and my own.  Helping others manage their way, helps to make me stronger under my own burdens.

Authors note: I am fine.  This may be one of the more personally intimate things I've written, and I don't want any readers to be concerned.  We all of rough days and I wrote this, a while ago, at the end of one of my rougher days.  I liked it though and I debated for a long time whether to publish it.  I decided to go ahead and put it out there for reasons I may write about some other day.