"Peace" of Thought

     Rising Fragile as she enters Soft beneath the skin The solid edge it mentors The souls that lies within Her carried weight looks heavy Though thin and weak she grows Inside the tunnels long and dark From fingers to her toes And still you see her rising Often lost along the way She leads through storms and glowing suns Through white clouds and the gray While all along you question Precarious as it seems She makes it through the ups and downs That lead to lakes and streams And as she bathes she listens To songs that from her past Prepares her for the future Moments calm and sure to last Her solid wisdom rises And meets the strength inside For now she's entered golden fields With nothing left to hide CNK

The New Me   Defining a “Journey” I’ve never been fond of that word, journey.  That is until recently.  Through my eyes the word journey implied many things that I could not relate to in any conceivable way.  Early in my years of battling Major Depressive Disorder, I absolutely hated the word journey.  When I was in my greatest depths of illness, I thought the term journey implied that I was on a voyage that would lead me to an end, a good end with a positivity about it and a sense of completeness.  Journey to me was like a trip and implied there was a firm beginning and a wonderous destination, an achievement of sorts that we learn from while navigating over a few bumps on the road.  I pictured a journey as ending in a place of comfort, a final destination that was earned through enlightening experience. I felt this way for the first 5 years of my illness and cringed whenever someone told me I was on a journey of wellness and recovery.  For me, this was no journey.  The idea was