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“Sometimes even to live is an act of courage” ― Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Honestly, I don’t even know how it started. I’ve been prying at my mind, but coming up empty every time. The first thing I remember was the war itself. It was being fought from the comfort of my room, or the one place I should be guaranteed to be safe. I was sitting in my bed, slowly drawing myself closer.
My mind was racing through nothing, my heart was accelerating to nothing, and my body was capable of nothing. I immediately noticed my anxiety building up, so I tried to breathe.
But I couldn’t.
I felt my chest reject any air that tried to come in. I kept grasping and grasping and grasping, but I couldn’t reach the air.
‘Why can’t I breathe?’ I silently cried out. ‘What’s wrong with me?’
At that last thought, there was a digging in my stomach. It kept piercing into me, it was practically eroding me down into nothing. The pain wasn’t constant though. It alternated from its insatiable, starving form to nothing. It kept switching and switching: on, off, on, off. It was almost soothing in a way. The digging started to inch its way up from my stomach. In time, the digging made its way up to my face.
I don’t know what provoked the digging, nor do I know why I couldn’t stop. I wanted to stop –I really did! I was trying to talk my body out of inducing this punishment on me, but my body just wouldn’t listen. While my mind was crying out to her, my body had completely shut off.
That ravenous digging that latched onto me was my own nails, scratching and clawing until my skin felt raw.
One slow minute later, my body was still rejecting any air and it still was cutting into itself. I started to miss the feeling of air in my lungs.
I thought this was the end of my life. There was absolutely no end in sight for me. I couldn’t find a light at the end of the tunnel, so I assumed it just ended.
As I gave up on hope, I released a final breath. With that, my once tight body had lost its tension. Now, when I reached out for the air, I was finally able to hold it tight. I clung to every breath, it was the honey my parched throat yearned for.
I have never been so grateful for air as I was then.