a dragonfly and a poet

“Because you’re about to miss it,” she said. I swear I could feel a pair of lips kiss my forehead.

A few months ago I woke up at 4 a.m. feeling crushed under the unbearable weight of my anxiety.  

Unpaid bills. Graying hair. Strained relationships. Health problems of a loved one. Struggling writing career. Relentless bouts of depression.  Failure. Self-doubt.  Anxiety. Regret. 

It was all lying on my chest like a cannonball. I have never felt this type of despair before.  

I crawled out of my bed and walked across the street to find a park bench to cry alone on.  I didn’t want my family to see me like this.  I didn’t want God to see me like this.

I was at the edge of all that I could handle. 

I put my hands in my face and just let it all out.  Everything I had been holding onto. 

All my grief. 
All my sorrow.  
All of my fear.  
All of my pain.  

It all poured out of my eyes.  

I hadn’t cried like this in a decade.  The guttural groaning coming from me probably scared a couple squirrels into believing a wolf had made its way into town to eat a fat-tailed rodent for a snack.

I cried and cried until the sun came up.  With my face buried so deeply in my palms I could hear my thumping pulse against my cheek. I felt each tear squeeze their way through the gaps in my fingers.  

It was like I was melting right there on that park bench.  I figured in a couple hours a jogger would have to jump over the middle-aged puddle of clothes and hair that I would soon become. 

My inner muse whispered in my ear like she always does in these moments when I’m barely holding on.  

She told me to “write something.”

That was her usual prescription for helping me through a panic attack like this.

“No,” I replied out loud. 

The nearby squirrels looked at me with concern in their pebble eyes as I argued with my invisible angels. 

I didn’t want to put it all on paper -or in this case as a note on phone.  I didn’t want to write about this unseen heartbreak I was going through. I didn’t want to read it.  I just wanted to melt down into a drain. I was too tired to do anything else. 

“Open your eyes, John,” my muse spoke softly. 

“Why?” 

“Because you’re about to miss it,” she said.  I swear I could feel a pair of lips kiss my forehead. 

I lifted my head.  The sun was peeking.  The darkness was the one that was melting away and I was still there - yet so was my anxiety. 

“Miss what?”  I asked.