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Not Taking a Spa Day

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

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It was not all that long ago, in the grand scheme of things, that I went on a day trip to a spa with several pools and naturally warmed water: it was a big draw for the area and something that I'd wanted to go to for a long time. I'd looked forward to the day and getting out with my boyfriend was most certainly something that I really wanted to do as, sometimes, with life dragging us back, we didn't get out to new places all that often.

The problem was that there were thoughts running through my vision, a screen playing before my eyes, showing me reasons why I should not have been enjoying the day. The memories of the past are slow to relinquish their hold on me and I was disturbed, not wanting to look back and yet struggling to feel in any way that I could look away for a longer period of time.

Don't stress, I told myself back then. It's okay. Everything's okay.

But it's hard to feel like anything at all is okay when you don't feel safe, when you keep looking back over your shoulder, wondering if today is going to be the day that everything catches up with me. Wondering if today will be the day that "he" finally gets me.

He's not here, of course, but my mind thinks he is. My brain thinks that I have to stay on alert at all times and I'm still looking back, wary when my glasses have to come off to go into the pool area, left in the lockers, safe for the moment. Everything's blurry and that means that I'm not safe - but I must be safe too because I'm here with my partner. That makes it okay, I'm sure, but I have to stay alert, stay vigilant, just in case today's the day that everything's about to come crashing down around me.

I don't feel safe when I'm in my own bed so why should I feel safe at the spa? I'm tense and rigid and my heart beats too quickly, unsteady as if I've drunk a little too much. I want to enjoy myself and, ultimately, I do, but no enjoyment comes anymore without the strain of tension in my shoulders, wanting to round and hunch, my body straining to brace if I ever release any modicum of tension at any time.

If only it could be that easy.

Could it be that easy? The big "him" gets to live their everyday, normal life as normal and, well...there's an anger in "why don't I?". Why don't I get to do that too? I want to forget everything and forget that the past exists but it does exist and it continues to affect me to this day. I don't want to be back in it, although it is as dominant in my life as a shadow under the water, curling back and forth, watching and waiting, coming for me.

There's nothing there, I have to tell myself, pressing into my partner's arms, although he doesn't know what's really going on, this sadness tugging at me. You're fine, you're safe. Yet I'm so used to my brain lying to me that I no longer know what is truth and what is a lie. Is there anything my mind can tell me that's a truth anymore?

Just because you think it does not make it true. Just because it's a thought does not make it true. Yet then how do I discern the truth from the lies? Do I believe my mind or do I take a step back from the thoughts that seek nothing more than to drag me down? My sadness benefits no one and yet I believe, so very much, that I deserve to be sad.

_ _

You shouldn't be here.

You shouldn't be happy.

Just what do you think you're doing?

This isn't for you.

You deserve all the bad things.

You hurt so many people.

No one likes you.

You're just in everyone's way.

Everyone hates you.

Things happened before that the guilt still churns through from, though I was merely trying to escape. That still seems like an excuse when I phrase it like that, like I'm trying to make my actions seem less than what they were. It's confusing and it's all a part of why my mind goes back again and again, trying to see what I did that was so bad. Because I must have, I must have done something terrible to be treated as I was - surely there can be no other reason for it? I don't know but I want to know, I want the answers, I want to see the truth through the cacophony of lies.

Did I do something wrong? Maybe that's why I feel like I'm wrong all the time. If I think that I've done something wrong by default, maybe I will know better and not make things worse. It doesn't make sense but it doesn't have to make sense for my brain to keep on repeating it time and time again.

Maybe one day I'll make sense of it. Maybe one day I'll come to terms with it all. I don't know. I can't know yet.

I feel guilty whether I'm guilty or not, therefore believing that I'm guilty, that I was the cause of my own abuse.

How fucked up is that? And, out there, in the spa... I had to try to forget, so many years later, the ghosts of the past swarming in the sunset. Only I saw their shapes and their shadows, though I have no doubt that everyone has their own demons to deal with. Mine just seem to soar higher and with sharper claws when they're aimed at me.

The water is light and the air is gentle, fresh and cold, sunset falling on the rooftop pool. People are laughing and I have to laugh with them, for I so badly want to let go of the past and leave myself here in this moment. Maybe other people would like me to be sad but I've lost enough of my life to not want to linger there a moment longer than I have to.

Breathing, slowing down. Take a breath, take a moment, take a spell. There's lightness in the air if only I can stretch out and take it. Which moment is real and which one is false? Which ones are memories, flashbacks playing out, and which was the reality of the present? I'd

rather be in the present of that rooftop pool, looking out over the city, wondering what I did to deserve to be there in warmth and light, gentleness and softness.

It's okay.

I exhale. My mind can be kind too.

Nothing is going to hurt me.

I'm going to be happy_._

And maybe that's all I have to be. I can take a spa day again and actually take it, letting the tension slip down, release from my shoulders, my back, my legs. It'll be okay to do so and, regardless of what my mind tells me day in and day out, it doesn't matter, in this case, whether anyone thinks I'm a terrible person or not for merely living. I just want everything to be normal for me, my version of normal, the best kind of normal that there can be for me as an individual with my partner.

The past has no bearing here. And I will let it go.

Though not only for a spa day.