I never understood the weight regret could carry until it got too large to hold in my hands. I never realized I was depressed until I was too deep inside the well that I couldn’t crawl out. I’ve dealt with episodes of sadness and moments of regret that fade.

It wasn’t until I had to make the hardest decision of my life that I was thrust into the throes of depression and shame that I’d never felt in my life, and now I don’t know who I am anymore. It’s one thing to make a life-altering decision that you agonized over and over, it’s another thing to regret that decision immediately after it’s made, and it’s something else entirely when the choice is not something that can be undone or reversed. I now have to live with a pain and regret so heavy I feel like my chest is constantly crushed. In the last year I’ve truly lost myself. I don’t know who I am anymore, I don’t know how to feel better, I don’t know where to go from here.

It’s a strange thing to feel like yourself your whole life, for one circumstance to then come along that strips your soul from your body. I feel foreign in here. I have goals, I have hopes. I just need to learn how to live with something I can never take back, for the rest of my life. The reality of this is consuming, my thoughts are jumbled and trapped, my head and my heart hurt. I find strength in sleep.

KERI