A Year Ago ...

.
.
The way I rode the horse
was heavily padded on both:
where I was seated on the saddle
as with the articles of my legs and back.
.
If in case I fell
six feet towards the ground
my fall shall have been broken
and I shall have resumed my stance
like a true professional.
.
I would dust off the cauda equina
as I would my own,
and consider myself ousted
by all the other equestrians.
.
Should I consider myself
too precautioned?
As yet, most of the others merely strode,
experienced in their striding
as if it were ordinary to draw the carriage.
But for me, I felt like waiting
for something about to happen.
.
The way I rode the horse
was like my hands were tied
and I was merely being pulled away
by the thoroughbred.
.
.
.

This poem I wrote exactly a year ago at the height of my depressive exasperation. I was around one and a half months into Nursing school and although I was top of the class, I wasn't enjoying the ride at all. Waking up for school had been a losing race all the time, and if it were not for my interest in studying Anatomy & Physiology, I would've found it pointless repeating the other minors.

I was with minors. Although most of them were friendly and nice, there wasn't anyone I could really talk to with the same verbal brilliance and intellectual tenacity as my college or high school friends. I was so bored. So very bored. And I couldn't find myself to hate them just because of this ennui. After all, they had been very nice to me and I still keep in touch with them till today.

I didn't keep a blog then so I relied on other avenues of expression like poetry, movies or music ... coffee, smokes, more smokes, and night outs with friends. In other cases, I drove myself insane with hideous thoughts on existentialism and the purpose of my life. I'd talk to myself in different tongues, I'd talk to myself till I'd fall asleep.


I had no peace of mind.


But I'm in a better place now. The Aquarian art of adaptability takes time to re-learn, but steadily, I can rebuild my life from scratch. When I learned to let go of the sense of urgency, the burden of purposiveness was lifted up from my shoulders and I've been able to appreciate my new-found mobility. My arms can reach up high again, but they can also extend a hand for others.

Like what Carolvs mentioned in his post, life just is. New goals, new hopes, new friends, new experiences, a new job ... a new perspective.

A year later, a new me.

.

.

.