Ticking droplets fall against my raincoat. The wind sticks the hat to my face. The road is covered with a thin layer of water reflecting the sky. I avoid the muck because I don't feel like having huge clods hanging from my legs this time.

My mind goes back to yesterday. The emptiness in my head is a kind of gray dull thing. There is nothing and yet something. It floats and goes and lives and takes. The dark, tense vibrations took me into a spiral of lostness. I heard voices. Voices of hatred and confusion. It wanted out. It wanted to scream. It wanted to lose everything, but I didn't want to burst. My fingers clenched into fists, and the muscles through my arms tensed until I was standing like a plank. I couldn't go anywhere. I saw waves of energy and heard voices I didn't understand. They said things with tension and anger. They cried out helplessness. They pulled at my hair and my skin. They shouted, 'Let me go. Let me out!' But I left them alone because I didn't want to go off the rails. I didn't want to make myself shout and scream. I didn't want to do it because that didn't help anyone, but it still didn't go away. I was watching, and it looked at me. Actually, it was sad or confused. It was not liked. It was ignored and hidden away. It wasn't supposed to be there. I didn't want it.

Then why doesn't it go away? I said I didn't want it. I told them that I didn't want to burst, because that's not who I want to be. And yet I didn't realize it.

Then I talked to my mom about this and she said, 'Do you know why it didn't go away? It was still a negative thought. You thought about “won't” instead of will. You actually pushed away everything you felt. If you say you don't want it, it will only get stronger and bigger. If we look at what we actually want, peace will return. That goes back to your core values. What do you think is important? Once you have listed these values, you will notice that if something does not match these values, you can make a choice. You can then see, hey, this is not what I want. This makes me restless, angry, tense, or something else that I would rather not focus on. Then you can turn it around. Without “not” but with what works? What is the true opposite of this energy? Then when you know it, you can turn it around.