Journal Entry

June 11, 2019

It's the little rituals that save me, that keep me from going crazy. I try to take comfort in small pleasures, actions. Toasted vanilla and amber perfume, bathing with lavender and rain-scented body soap, and my vape of course. Chocolate strawberries, heavy on the nicotine. The meaning may be small, but there is nonetheless meaning to be found in order, cleanliness, the mundane and daily rites of living. I am clean, I smell fresh, I put my make-up on today. I am trying, at least; I am alive. And even though I feel familiarly sad, empty, lonely and lost, I force myself to smile at others.

We just got back from the center a while ago. 2:53 pm--how do I fill up the hours before bedtime, when I can sleep and dream, can do what I call the "letting-go"? I climb into bed, fresh and clean and perfumed, I close my eyes and pretend I'm encased in a little steel hut--there are animals outside, and it's raining softly, and I can hear the rain, but nothing can penetrate my tight little womb, my mind's tiny protective edifice swathed in starlight... I stretch my hands out, and little by little, finger by finger, I tell myself to let go, and only then do I feel a deep peace settling in, I feel I am literally letting go of the day, of all its tribulations and obligations, and setting it free, for it is finished and I can do nothing else with it but to rest myself for the next day and whatever it may bring.