I Would Rather Be In Bed

It’s quite an epidemic it seems, among poets and writers alike, that those who speak of mental illness the most find the universe to an inexhaustible source of inspiration. I myself find it a fascinating and never tiring source of hope and quiet peace in a lot of ways. 

I found myself wondering what about it has such a magnetic pull to the desperate and the dark. The average person doesn’t really gives the stars or the moon or the universe much thought at all I don’t think, not really. Not in the abstract way many of those who struggle with their own minds do. Those who liken their thoughts and hearts to the darkness that stretches across the vastness of space. 

Maybe it’s comfort to know how small, in the grand scheme of things, our problems really are. Swallowed up in the enormity of space and time that maybe, in perspective, nothing we do really matters anyways. Or perhaps we feel drowned out in the anonymity of the emptiness of the entirety of existence. It could be just an endless pool of metaphors and similes for dark minds and chaos laden hearts. I may never know. 

For me, at least, on quiet nights or soft mornings when the stars are bright and the air is still and everything else is dark; I find I can hear myself best in those moments. Some of my best memories as a child are those of the nights my dad would take me outside and show me the stars and tell me about the planets and the moon. Maybe it’s comfort of days past. Maybe it’s a reminder of a time when life wasn’t so hard and things weren’t so sharp edged and deep.

What I do know is, when the night sky is clear, and the stars are bright, I never am in too much of a hurry to stop. To stare. To spend a few minutes in quiet wonder of things far bigger, far more beautiful than the ugliness this world has to offer. I take a deep breath and I remember all the times I’ve survived and I know it’s going to be okay. That gentle light in the dark helps me heal, and that, I think, is why I’ll never quit looking up.