Every morning for the last few months, she woke up feeling like she was in a fog. Well, almost every morning. On weekends, she usually woke up feeling a little better. She wasn’t sure if that was because she could sleep later or because she didn’t have to go to work. There was no doubt that the thought of another day at her job often made her curl up in a fetal position. It wasn’t that the job itself was so bad. It just wasn’t what she wanted to be doing and it was slowly sucking the life from her.
The job issue wasn’t her biggest problem though. She’d been in a funk for months, and as her birthday approached, it got worse. All the insecurities and fears about being alone or abandoned or unwanted were barreling down on her like a tornado. She did her best to ignore them, but then they’d just show up in her dreams. Each night was a new dream with the same ending: she was alone or abandoned or unwanted. After several weeks, they really started to chip away at her psyche. After a month, it colored everything she did and saw.
But this last dream had really left her upset. She was throwing a birthday party for herself, in a grocery store for some strange reason, and nobody showed up. When she woke up, she just felt completely and utterly alone. She managed to get up enough energy to get dressed and go to work, but her head was elsewhere. She couldn’t get away from that dream. As irrational as she knew she was being, she couldn’t stop thinking about how ignored she often felt. Aside from her family and a few close friends, nobody really ever acknowledged her birthday. It shouldn’t matter to her, but it did. How hard was it to take a minute to wish someone a happy birthday? She had always done her best to give birthday greetings to her friends. So as she sat at her desk trying to work, she kept thinking about what that day would bring. Would it pass virtually unnoticed? The more she thought about, the sadder she became.
As she obsessed about this, the red message indicator popped up. She clicked on it and a huge smile broke out across her face. It was from her. The one who had unexpectedly entered her life and made it so much brighter. The one who appreciated her for who she was. The one who made her heart race when she thought about her. The one who had changed everything and had given her hope that a happy ending just might be possible. Reading the message, her smile got bigger and suddenly all the other crap that was bringing her down just didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if other people forgot her. It didn’t matter if others had abandoned her in the past. That was their loss.
Her words were a beacon that burned through the thickest fog. Reading the message again, she smiled and felt like the sun was shining down on her. The fog was gone. And as long as they had each other, it would stay that way.