Your room's a
mess. You can't see the floor; it's covered by dirty
clothes and clean clothes and the boots you wore two weekends
ago and bags and lamps and paper and books and so much other
stuff you can't even start to look at. Your hair's
greasy because you haven't washed it in longer thank you
can remember, maybe last Sunday, maybe the Thursday before.
Your nails are bitten down, your beds bleeding, your cuticles
frayed. Your skin is a disaster, screaming at you in
blemishes for all the unwashed nights, the quick-fire
mornings, and the nail-scrape-panic you've put it
through. You don't know how you got here. You're
starting think you've been here the whole time.
Just listen to me, baby, listen to me right
now. Brush your teeth, and take your time. Clean
every ridge between the teeth in your mouth. And take a
shower; short or long, shampoo or body wash or nothing but
water, whatever you can manage, and change back into your
two-week-old pyjamas if you have to.. Get two plasters and
put them on the two most painful fingers; not the thumbs, but
try give them a chance to heal and rest. Straighten the sheet
on your bed. Stretch up the corner so it covers the matress,
even if you can't bring yourself to fold it over the
whole corner.
That's it, sweetie. That's enough. If that's all
you can do today, stop there. Don't push yourself, but
remember that everything you just did is done now.
You've done that much, and it's something.
It won't cure you. It won't make the
pain or the hurt go away. It won't bring colour back, not
by itself. But taking care of yourself, even in these small
things, adds up. It makes the night bearable. It lets you go
to sleep peacefully. It quietens the noise in your head, even
if just for one night. You can repeat it tomorrow, or do
less, or do more, and make tomorrow a bit more bearable, too.
And the next day. And the day after that.
D o n ' t f o r g e t t h a t y
o u r w h o l e l i f e i s a
t o m o r r o w a f t e r a t o m
o r r o w .
You don't need to have the big things figured
out. You can take it day by day, hour by hour, night
by night, thought by thought. You can do that, and
that will get you through it. One tomorrow,
trust me, will be a tomorrow when you're okay.
Until that's today, keep pushing through the
days, because you w i l l get
there.