Mind over matter.

The effort to still the dizzying spin caused by dramatic turns of events. The cracked edges around a forced smile. The heaved sigh when no one is looking. The stretching and stretching until it seems one more pull will cause sanity to break in hoplessly fractured pieces, so brutally severed that no amount of carefully mending will put them back together again. Humpty dumpty and the ineptitude of the king's horses.

Mind over matter.

Intelligence. Aptitude. Work ethic. Ability to learn quickly. Ability to retain details often lost in the shuffle. Ability to put together puzzle pieces without having been told where they belong. Ability. Is that all the separates me from them? Just this fanciful idea of natural intelligence, of common sense, of wisdom? What makes me more able than they?

Mind over matter.

Don't look to the future. It will only cause panic. Fear. Frustration. Take each day as it comes. One hour at a time. One step at a time. One breath at a time. Tommorrow will bring its own worries. Today has enough to fill the minutes. To fill the mind. To fill the silence with the cacophony of demands.

Mind over matter.

Fingers falter and words are stilted. The effort to remain sane. To keep from dwelling on what has been and what will be. To accept that which has happened. To realize there is no such thing as control. Except for the control of one's thoughts. One's mind.

Mind over matter.

Stiff upper lip to conceal the trembling of the lower one. Dark and depressed fancies fiercely shoved back in the dusty, deep corners of thought-cupboards. Shoulders squared and ready to take on the load that tomorrow shall certainly bring. The trick is to deceive body into thinking that there is nothing wrong. That the weariness is natural and the numbing is how the mind survives the beating. The thrashing. The painful separation of hope and reality, as the world looms large and menacing over dreams.

Mind over matter.

And through it all, the realization that despite the fears, frustrations, and exhaustion that threaten each day...

...there remains the one thing that I still have control over.

Matter. The fingers, tapping away, triumph over the worn and weary belief that there is nothing worthwhile to say. Mind.

Triumph over fear, victory over silence, faith over doubt.

The release of matter over the iron gates of the mind.

Matter.

Mind.

Over.