Shadows Fall

“No matter how many hits I receive,
I have the comfort of knowing who I am
and what I’ve overcome.”

No, this life of mine has never been easy. It seems as though I’ve been fighting some kind of war during every stage. A fight to survive. A fight to fit in. Make friends, not acquaintances of convenience. Try to live a life that had some sort of meaning after everything that happened. But school didn’t make that easy. It felt like an uphill battle and I was a well-tuned wheel, ready to roll down to the bottom with an unceremonious splat. I kept getting up. Kept trying. After all, I’d survived worse. So I pressed on and realized the bottom of that hill became a chasm. One that awaited to swallow me whole and devour me in the next instant. A place where shadows fall and never retreat.

But I’ve come to the realization that this life is what you make of it. No matter how many punches or kicks I receive, I have the comfort of knowing who I am and what I’ve overcome. This life of mine was never a competition, except the ones I set for myself. And to the ones that have thrown hits of their own, I hope you find peace within yourself. I’ve never been a competitor and I never will be. I’ve never been an enemy, except the one created in your head. I’ve never been more than an easy mark to trample over when the time was right. And I suppose that fault is mine to bear for putting that welcome mat on my revolving door.

© Sarah Doughty

I repeat, this life of mine
was never a competition,
except the ones
I set for myself.

While this came pouring out of me this morning, I realized I had a lot of feelings about this that needed to come out. So consider it more of an essay about one aspect of my current situation.

This was written for day fourteen
of November Notes.
Shadows Fall by Random Forest