And then I quit writing but I thought maybe I'd fix that now.

So about the time graduate school happened my blog became a sort of thing of the past.  And I very much have missed writing. So I created goals for myself to write more, read more, social media less and a bunch of other ways I'm trying to balance out my life.  Then I happened upon a writing challenge wherein there is a prompt and then you set your timer for 8 minutes and just write.  And so this is my first attempt. 

I remember: 

 

I remember when I was 17 years old and there was a specific moment in time when while taking a bath in my white porcelain tub and staring down at my thighs and feet popping out of the water.  I remember thinking that this moment was a moment I should remember.  I was on the cusp of graduating and still a kid but almost an adult.  I had spent the majority of my junior and senior year of high school in a kind of funk and depression about life.  I remember thinking for the first time, in a very long time, that maybe I could get past the depression.

 I can barely remember now what all the reasons for the depression were.  I think they had to do with fitting in, with being enough, and believing I wasn’t enough of any of the right things and too many of the wrong things.  In that moment in the bathtub I had some moment of clarity. I remember feeling the depression sort of lifting away from my body and melting into the tub with the bubbles and the water and eventually circling the drain as I got out.  Even though I don’t remember or even any longer understand all the reasons why I was depressed, I remember that it felt very overwhelming at the time.  The tenor and magnitude of the depression is still a vivid memory for me.  It felt like a secret burden I carried around with me all the time, like an invisible backpack no one else could see. The moment in the bathtub was also a moment when I saw a vision of what the future could be.  I began to believe just the tiniest bit in an adult version of myself, and I began in the smallest way to suspect that maybe after all, I really was enough. 

My body suddenly seemed a little better than it had an hour before.  My mind felt clear.  For the first time I began to envision a future for myself.  It was the beginning of adulthood and the ending of childhood and I had the good fortune to feel and experience the transition.