Unveil

'I am okay.' 

I used to say that a lot. To my family. To my friends. To everyone who mattered or at least those who I assumed were important.

I guess I was covering the mirror of my own truth. Slowing pulling a thick white veil over the unflinching silver. I suppose I thought I could be happy by crossing roads with my eyes shut. I was wrong, terribly wrong.

I did stumble, not once or twice but countless times. Yet I kept going back to the things that have hurt me, to the people who have caused me pain. I was like a stubborn bull that refused to see reason. At what cost, though? At the cost of my health, both physical and mental. I was living in the hell I single-handedly made.

Then came the lockdown and my life was filled with a strange sense of peace and contentment. I was confined within four walls, left to my own devices. With the pace of life slowed down, my innermost thoughts crept in.

They scared me, also numbed me, at long last I was facing the truth. 

'I am not okay.' 

I came to the realisation, only to realise next that I was never okay. I just refused to accept my depression and hoped that it will magically be cured or that someone will notice and come to my rescue. 

None of that happened. Over the course of time, nothing changed and no one helped. 

Along with this epiphany came the conviction of working on myself, I had to do it to fix my life.

So I unveiled the mirror and fully faced my soul. A soul that has been beaten and battered by words that were sharper than needles and actions that were harsher than storms. A soul that ate all the pain silently and tried to return it back but failed and got even more hurt in the process. 

My soul is bruised and for years I left it that way. 

In solitude, my wounds reopened and I began to tend to them. Though it was painful I accepted my past, my flaws and my sins. I apologized when needed, confronted all those whom I should have and I liberated myself from the weight of my conscience.

This lockdown taught me two things, one: hiding from your problems is never a solution, and two: you have to stand up for yourself, cause no one will do it for you.