Friday, November 13, 2009

Day 119: To Write Love On Her Arms

Today was national To Write Love On Her Arms Day, so the first thing I did after my shower was grab a bright blue highlighter and scrawl "Love" across my left wrist.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with in, TWLOHA is a non-profit that was set up to combat depression, cutting and suicide. It's a beautiful mission that I am so grateful someone took on. While explaining the organization to my mom, I visited their website and read her their vision. I found myself getting a little choked up just reading it. Hope is something that gets taken for granted a lot in life, and I find it incredibly inspiring that someone would make hope their life's mission, especially in the face of depression.

Hope is something that has come and gone for me. And it comes and goes for a lot of people. (Most people, I would think.) There are days when I don't want to keep living and days when I don't want to face the world, and there are days when I am completely hopeless. And when those days come around, it's hard to remember the days when I was excited for life or ecstatic about something. Hopelessness is an all-consuming feeling.

So, today, I am grateful for:
  • TWLOHA. I encourage everyone to visit their website and become familiar with their cause. It's a spectacular one, and it's an inspiring one. And it opens up so many lines of communication. In explaining the organization to my mother, we ended up having a discussion about my depression that we hadn't had before.
  • my mom's old guitar. I've claimed it as my own, and plan on spending the weeked teaching myself to play songs besides the ones I've written.
  • hot chocolate. It was fairly cold today by my new Ark standards, so it was nice to curl up with a giant mug of hot chocolate to reheat myself.
  • Ghost Bros tonight! I'm all excited because I think this is the episode where Zach totally freaks out. Mean, I know. But I fully admit to looking forward to it.
  • a relaxing, artsy weekend ahead of me. I'm planning on spending the next two days writing, playing guitar and working with clay and stained glass.

"There's no place like hope."

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