An Awakening

I've been sleeping, I think. For a while now.

A conversation recently:

My brother and I in the kitchen, talking about his illness. He says that sometimes if you're ill long-term you can get depressed. And sometimes if you're depressed you can get ill. I think I've been depressed, I tell him. Without meaning to say it.

And there it is.

I was walking home the other day, at that time of evening when the light comes from somewhere low and warm, and a neighbour in a passing car waved to me. There was a time when I hated how small my town was, would have hated that comfortable assumption that everyone knows everyone. But just then it seemed the most wonderful gesture a person could make.

And I can't make out how I was blind to this, to the beauty of things, for such a long time. How I didn't realise the sheer momentous quality of just being alive.

I think I'm beginning a slow recovery, an awakening. I'm not afraid anymore. I'm just concentrating on being here, on letting all the feelings in, on me in this big beautiful world.

On just breathing.