I didn’t realise I was drowning until the day my cloud finally burst.

As I walked through the streets, I began to see it. People walking with their heads hung low, too afraid to look up and be confronted with reality. This reality, darkness in the form of a dark cloud, hung above their heads everywhere they went.

They held a constant threat to burst, to soak the person underneath and drown them. Too afraid myself to look up and see that I was also followed by that same cloud, I continued my path through life.

Until one day, that cloud followed me all the way to a small town in France. I had rented a bike, the sun was out, and out of nowhere, it burst. The water drenched me while the people around me were taking in the sun. They did not see I was drowning right in front of them, so I continued riding the bike, shivering as my cloud did not recede. I felt trapped, a prison of my own making. The guards, copies of the darker parts of myself, stopped me from escaping, from healing.

One day, I made a run for it and breathed oxygen for the first time. Ideas began to form, fingers began to move over the keyboard, and the sun slowly peeked from behind my dark cloud.

This cloud will be a part of my life forever, a threat I will always be aware of. But the strength in storytelling, expressing emotions through words and sharing them with the world, allows the sun to peek through at times.

Never forget that we all carry them. We all stumble through life, finding things that let the sun through.

Writing has become mine.

I hope you find yours,

Helena