Sometimes all you need is a match.

I've lost myself over the past few years. It took something almost heart-shattering to realize how far into the dark I've stumbled.
It's time to light a candle. Then another. Then another.
But right now all I have is a match. A single flame in the dark.
I miss who I was. I was fun, flirty, confident. Did I still have anxiety and depression? Yes. But my heart was a torch and i used it to guide my path.
I can't turn back the clock and undo past damages. But what I can do is rekindle my fire.
I'm going to start with practicing mindfulness and helping my physical body feel better.
I'm running on very little sleep. The sleep I had was rife with anxiety-laden symbolism. It was a rapid cycle of running a particular gambit of parts of myself (expressed as people I'm close to), ending with sleep paralysis. I was able (with increasing difficulty) to force myself back to physical consciousness, only to slip back into the next repeat of the same dream, followed again by sleep paralysis.
I hadn't had sleep paralysis in months, maybe a year. Last night/this morning I counted at least 6 full cycles of dream then sleep paralysis.

My body, my mind, my heart want to fly again. I have to figure out how to open the cage and to spread my wings again. I'll have to relearn all of it. But I did it once, and I can do it again.

I don't want to use the word hope yet. But I'm not dead. I want to fight. I'm going to fight.