Soothe.

Life's been tough lately. Being home for the holiday compounds it. I've made mistakes. I've gotten hurt. I've walked into a chandelier, into many chandeliers. I've added injury to insult, insult to injury, mixed and repeated.

Sometimes I think to myself, look outside yourself and your little life. Look how lucky you are. But realistically that only gets you so far. And you end up feeling helpless and thus worse.

I've been having a great time in my new life in Iowa City. It is quaint, it is friendly, I am productive, I am, for the most part, happy. But accidents continue to happen--I think I have a sign on my head, underneath this bump, that says "Danger Welcome". I fall down, but I pick myself up, my friends pick me up, writing, it picks me up.

But then a rapid succession of punches comes, and I'm down for ten seconds and it's a Technical Knock Out. I can't get up. The bump hurts. Everything hurts. And I made the mistake, texted while walking, ignored the warnings, didnt' heed advice, so it's that much more painful.

Darkness. Looking up and seeing light very far away. It's dramatic but right now it's reality and I'm having a hard time escaping it. Which reminds me of something a poet recently told me: "You have to make your own escape."

I never understood it when people asked to be "saved from themselves." It sounds romantic but weird and abstract. But now I get it. To be saved from oneself is to be rescued from one's habits and addictions and recurring thoughts and fears. But like the poet says, no one can swoop in and do that for you. And I wish someone could. Instead here I am, trying to save myself.

Ouch, ouch, ouch. The bump hurts, resonates, tugs, somehow, at my heart. I am not supposed to be the girl sitting on the floor with a bump on her forehead. That couldn't be me. Not the me in my delusions of grandeur, not the me in the home videos, not the me, even, on my Facebook profile. I don't know who that is, though I want to. I want not to ache, not to cry, not to be in this hole.

It's dark now. But I'll go to sleep and morning will come, and I will brew coffee and at the first sip I will feel better. I will feel that little thing called hope, a sliver of excitement, of prospect, of healing, of home. And I will take another sip, and keep hoping.

Until then, I need to ice my wound.