Isabella had a good morning. 

At dawn, the sun poured through her bedroom window, coating the room in honeyed light. She swore she could almost taste its sweetness. 

Rolling over in her bed, she glanced at the clock. It read 7:15 in digital numbers that seemed a brighter hue of red than the day before. Even in the glimmering sunlight. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d awakened to anything but darkness and considered it a victory. She smiled; knowing that her brother Xavier would fail to see a 7:15 wakeup as anything but drudgery. He whose definition of drudgery hailed from a different dictionary than hers. So she decided that the only thing to do was to call him right then. 

“Is everything okay?” he answered quickly in a voice that managed somehow to be both sleepy and alarmed. 

“Let’s get breakfast,” she said. 

There was a long pause and a sigh. “You do realize what time it is.”

“I do,” she said. “And I’m hungry.” 

Another pause. She knew he was tilting his head back and throwing his arm over his face in exasperation. She knew this because she knew him better than anyone in the world. She also knew that he would capitulate because she had barely eaten in a week – despite his repeated efforts to get her to do so. Just three days previous he’d swung by with a bag of Funyons and a cherry Slurpee – two of her childhood favorites – in an ill-fated attempt to lure her out of the darkness. She could not bear to put either to her mouth that day for all of the uncontrollable shaking and shuddering of her body. 

“Fine,” he said. “But you owe me.”

“I will never argue that,” she said. “Ernie’s?”

“Sure,” he said through a yawn.

“Meet at my place in 20 minutes?”

He paused again. “How about a half hour?”

Izzy stood at her window and bit at a loose hangnail on her thumb. She watched her neighbor Corrine tending to her garden. She had a faraway and peaceful smile on her face. “Fine,” she responded absently to Xavier – marveling at how Corrine moved from plant to plant with such effortless grace and focus. It gave her a familiar sinking feeling; something that smacked of failure. 

“See you then,” said Xavier, then hung up. His inability to formally end the conversation with a goodbye had always irked Izzy. More so, in all likelihood, because he was her brother. 

Since she had a little extra time, she decided to shower. Realizing she hadn’t cleaned herself in five days, she knew she must be a bit ripe. At this thought, the words no wonder nobody EVER wants to hang out with you moved across her consciousness as though on a ticker tape. She closed her eyes, shook off the words, and replaced them with an image of her brother smiling at her. 

From the closet, Izzy pulled out her favorite summer dress – the flowy purple one upon which she’d embroidered pale yellow flowers with delicate blue-green leaves. She carried it into the bathroom and placed it gingerly on the back of the toilet. Turning on the cold water in the shower, she quickly stepped into the icy stream. She’d heard that shocking the nervous system in this way was good for the body. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. Whatever the case, she felt a long-absent surge of energy edged with a sense of hope. She inhaled the clean scent of the peppermint shower gel, then released a long exhale – envisioning a small cloud of black glitter dissipating then settling to the bottom of the tub where it would circle down the drain and out of her life forever. 

“Adios, ick,” she said to no one. Except, of course, the ick.

She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and looked in the mirror – relieved to be spared of the repulsion she’d felt in previous days. There was a lightness in her step as she walked through her kitchen, swiped her meds off the counter, grabbed an apple and a bottle of water, and went onto the porch to await Xavier. 

Sitting in the warmth of the early morning sun, she reflected on her nearly two decades of practicing yoga and meditation. Then she opened the bottle of water and took her medication. As the cool water flowed down her throat, she was overcome with gratitude for it all. The yoga. The meditation. The pills. And, of course, her brother.

Then she sighed, thinking about all of the unsolicited advice from well-meaning “healers” over the years who thought they had the magic elixir for what ailed her. They promised her she could go off her medication and live a happy life. She was not too proud to admit that, compelled by misguided shame, she bought into these ideas a few times. Not once. Not twice. But three times. Yep. Turns out the whole “fool me twice” trope (or thrice in this case) was easily achieved in moments of painful desperation.

“See, you need to stop referring to them as your meds,” one particularly bleary-eyed New Age creature had recently said to her. “When you take ownership, you become dependent.” And so Izzy had gone off her meds. Three times. And three times, she went back on them when the agonizing emotional pain and physical misery outweighed the shame of needing to take them. This time was the third time. And the last time, she said to herself with resolve.

“I brought you some flowers,” Corrine said, appearing suddenly at the bottom of the stairs and startling Izzy to the point where she jumped. “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“No, that’s okay. You didn’t,” Izzy lied, then added, “I just startle really easily.” 

Corrine came up the stairs and handed Izzy an array of lively zinnias, sunflowers, and snapdragons so brightly colored that they vibrated and hummed. Izzy reached forward to take them and smiled. “Thank you so much, Corrine,” she said, holding them close to her nose. She knew they wouldn’t be sweetly fragrant in the storybook way of flowers, but would instead impart a scent that was organic and earthy. Warm. “This is so kind of you.”

Corrine smiled and shrugged. “We could all use a little more brightness in our lives, yeah?” She nodded in a strangely knowing way to Izzy and smiled as she turned around and began walking back to her house. “Have a good morning,” she called out, leaving Izzy standing on her porch with the flowers and the recognition that, once again, it was a good morning.

“Bella Ding Dong!” she heard Xavier sing as he came up the walk a minute later. 

As a child, Isabella’s name was never shortened to Izzy, but rather to Bella. Shortly after recovering from her first serious episode/setback, she’d adopted Izzy in an unsuccessful attempt to wipe the slate clean and start over. And since she’d retained no childhood friends and her parents had since departed, only Xavier still called her Bella. 

“Nice flowers!” he said with a goofy smile that reminded her of the 3-year-old Xavier.

“Yes,” she nodded. “I think they are.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re up and about,” he said, investigating a ball of wax he’d just mined from his ear. She envied how he seemed to move through life with such ease. He always had. And even if he couldn’t grasp the trappings of her brain, he was always there for her. Always. “Ready to go?”

“I am,” she said, proud that she was unafraid to leave her house. “Just let me go put these in some water,” she said, holding up the bouquet like a trophy. Placing them into a vase of water, she was moved by their beauty.

Yes. Isabella had a good morning yesterday. 

But today, as the same bright sun shines in her window, she begins the day in darkness. The flowers that hummed and vibrated have gone quiet and still while her body shakes and shudders in fear. There will be no leaving her house today, no purple dress, no invigorating shower, no Funyons, no cherry Slurpee. The memory of yesterday reminds her that the meds are finally beginning to work again. Meanwhile, the hopelessness of today tries to convince her that they won’t this time. If she’s to survive, she’ll have to hold on until the next purple-dressed, brightly-flowered, sunshiny morning at Ernie’s with Xavier – whenever that might be.

Because this is the process. 

The cruel, exhausting, goddamned process.