the paper cranes

The coldest days are always the brightest. The sun bears down on us, but it brings no warmth. It just shines, malicious and blinding against the white, white, white. 

"Limit your outdoor exposure." The weatherman says. The thermometer reads -20° F, but the wind plummets the temperature even further. It is -41° F with windchill when I step outside into the merciless sun. I am wearing an obsene amount of layers, but it still cuts through me. My car groans pathetically when I start it, whining slowly to life. Everything is quiet. There is no movement on my street. I would be inside too, but I have to drive across the river to a normal looking office building and see if I meet the requirements for DBT.

I sit in the waiting room, still wrapped in my coat, my gloves, my hat, my scarf. The cold is still lingering in my bones. Next to me, a man and woman sit with a skinny teenage boy. The woman keeps dabbing at her eyes. The man is tapping his foot, restless. He eyes me with blatant curiosity. I look away.

"...don't want to!" The boy is whispering sullenly. 

His father replies, a short sentence muttered under his breath.

The boy retorts his own muttered reply, and his mother dabs her eyes again. His father on the other hand, lets out a dramatic sigh, his voice rising.

"God, I don't know why you can't just get over it. Just get on the internet. There's at least twenty different ways to fix this."

The mother sniffs. The boy glares. I stare at the floor and clench my teeth.

Just get over it.

...

"How do you feel about DBT?"

She smiles, this therapist. I look down at my hands.

Anxious. Pressured. Angry. Frightened. Unenthusiastic. Curious.

I am honest about my feelings, and I wait for her to tell me I can't join, that I need to want this.

I start next week.

...

I turned twenty-seven over the weekend. 

It was a date that I dreaded, and age had nothing to do with it. I have always loved my birthday, but my twenty-sixth birthday was a dark day. My twenty-sixth birthday was when everything started going downhill. I was sobbing in the dark on the kitchen floor, and I knew that everything was going to fall apart.

I was so afraid I would experience that again.

But this year? This year everything was perfect. I was surrounded by people I loved. We went out. We drank. We danced. We laughed. We celebrated. It was everything I wanted.

But a birthday is just a day.

Sunday, my actual birthday, I woke heavy-hearted. I wandered around the house like a ghost all morning until I suddenly realized what was wrong.

I had expected my perfect birthday to magically fix things. My perfect day would lift the curse placed on me one year ago. One perfect day and everything would be ok.

Later my friends came over again and we ate cake and I opened presents. The last one was from one of my closest friends. I opened it to find a framed piece of art. It was delicately crafted, just a simple colorful drawing on white paper. I was holding it upside down at first, but when I flipped it over, I almost broke down in front of everyone.

It was a drawing of paper cranes.

I folded so many paper cranes while I was in the hospital. It started as a distraction. To keep my hands from using a plastic comb to attack my wrists. But then I started giving them away to the other patients. And those little brightly colored paper cranes spread across the ward. People smiled. And with each one, life didn't feel quite so hopeless.

Maybe everything is still broken. Maybe I'm still not ok.

Maybe life isn't hopeless.