When the leaves start to turn, so will I

At yoga today, we did an exercise where you think relaxing thoughts, or healing thoughts, or just happy thoughts, at the beginning of class, but you concentrate on the thought(s) while you're building energy throughout class. Then, right before the relaxation technique at the end, you release the energy you've accumulated and push it out into the world, wherever you want it to go. We were told that we could use it for ourselves, if we just needed to relax our minds and make it throught the week, but I used my energy for two of my friends, thinking simultaneous thoughts for them and sending out my wishes with all of my heart. I know that one of them needed the relaxation I could have kept for myself, and I just wanted the other one to know I was thinking about them. It was the closest thing I've felt to prayer in a long time, and it felt good, for a while.

During class, the pains in my lower back started to come back. Not a bad pain, but rather more of a discomfort after the back twists, when I was laying flat on my back. Almost like phantom pains, reminding me how I was scared about my back recently - just before I found this job, but didn't have anyone to talk to want to talk to anyone about it.

This back pain had hit me hard and sharp, and actually made it very difficult for me to get around for a few weeks. Weeks. It disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared, but for a while I was terrified, because there was no explanation as to why my back suddenly stopped feeling normal, and wouldn't get better. It was either bad or worse for a while, but the pain was always there, 24 hours a day.

My theory is that the pain was a physical manifestation of my depression. The depression that I was denying -- it was trying to get my attention and make me address the problem. My family, we don't talk about these things, much less to professionals. We suck it up. We deal with it. That's just stupid. I should have seen a doctor. I should have told a friend. I should still see a doctor, or talk to my yoga instructor about it, especially if it's coming back. Especially if it's mental.

Because I think I know why it's hurting. I can feel the melancholy enveloping me again. Meloncholy without purpose; without reason. See, I don't know what I'm so sad about. I don't know why it makes me happy to have sadness inside of me; why I feel so full when I feel so empty.

I think it's the turning of the seasons. The idea that I'm losing something that I'll never get back. I want to take it all in and keep it from slipping through my fingers again, and I want to smell it and taste it once more. I want to hold it and breathe it in, and I want it to linger just a little bit longer this time.

I despise the in-betweens. Autumn can't get here soon enough.