Mercy

And you can start the day with physical labor and the best of intentions and it can all just unravel. Alison Krauss wafting languidly over the speakers while she sits across the desk from me, crying, twelve years old and her story stops and starts because there is so much that she wants to tell me and so much that she is afraid to tell me. The music reminds me of autumn, and of my dad, and the way the two coalesce makes me sad somewhere down in the pit of my stomach and I can't entirely put my finger on why. Part of it stems from the way I've let myself down, how I chose to flood my brain with serotonin and that I would so willingly take out a mortgage on my future self, how I have allowed the stress to become too much and all of the other great excuses, justifications. Everything that I offer her sounds stupid and not enough once it escapes my lips, but she smiles and laughs occasionally and must be able to sense my own cloistered inadequacy because when the bell rings she tells me that she feels better and that she wants to talk again. Soon. I will make the vow again to myself, that same one that I have made so many times before. To be present. Really present. It makes you weaker, Emily, and less able to deal with the world, people. Follow the advice that you would give to the kids -- do the opposite of what you feel. The best cure for the creeping sadness is action. It wants you to offer no defense, it wants to fuel itself off of your prostration. So fight, and don't view this as a failure but as an opportunity to begin again. Just keep getting up.