Recovery is hard. They don't lie about that but they don't tell you that one day you'll wake up finally clear headed and happy to discover you've lost years of your life. Time is fickle, there's no getting it back once it's gone. I missed so much. The weight of that loss is consuming, there's so much I'll never get back.

Clarity allows perspective. I've been in a fog since I was seventeen and although I've finally clawed my way out it's not without sacrifice. I lost all of my twenties. It should have been a decade spent finding myself but slept through it and now I'm years behind my peers. I'm staring over at thirty-two. I haven't got time to mourn the time I lost but it's there in the back of mind. A constant reminder of the shaky foundation my new life is on.

I missed milestones and moments. My body was there but I was not. Friends and family, they all lived through the time I lost, they can't see what's missing. They can't see how far the starting line got pushed back. They see recovery and they see the light at the end of the tunnel because I'm doing so much better.

There's no allowance for sadness when things are going well. My recovery is going well. I'll be fighting for the rest of my life but I can see the future and it's no longer terrifying. It's what I'm trying to focus on but the darkness is still behind me. No matter how light it gets going forward there's a shadow in my past I'll never be able to light up and I'm sad.

Finally getting my life back is a miracle but I'm sad. I'm not going to give up or turn back but I'm sad. I lost so much of my life and it's sad.

I can't tell anyone that I'm grieving. They wouldn't understand. All I have is a moment in the morning as the day begins and my memory folds together when I feel the loss of every year as though they've only just been taken. One terrible moment to feel everything until I drag it back inside and start to move forward again.