Catharsis.

Here on Earth, life depends on the adjustments.  The ups and downs.  The happy and the sad.  The one side the gives you perspective when you get to the other.  The never-ending teeter-totter, the constant pendulum of laughter and tears.

I just had a tears moment.  Over my own characters.  And not just one or two, as it usually happens.  No, this moment came courtesy of almost every character I've ever been close to.  It must have been twenty, thirty at least.  Crowded inside my head.  They reminded me of every sad thing I've ever written, every misfortune, every death.  Every person who had to move on in the timeline, in the reality inside my head.

It was hard.  But I needed it.

I have a tendency to take this art for granted.  I forget all the time what an honor and a privilege it is to be able to do what I do.  These characters - these people all living inside my mind... it's a beautiful, bittersweet state of being.

It's beautiful because they're my friends.  They are closer to me than anyone on this planet will ever be. They live inside my skin; they move me with their beliefs and their choices; their thoughts run through my veins.  I can't be a single entity anymore because they are me and I am them.

It's bittersweet because... they are me and I am them.  And they suffer.  Oh, they suffer.  When they suffer, I suffer.  They're bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh and I feel everything they feel.

And there are those few characters who turn out to be more of me than the others.  The ones whose pain comes from mine.  The ones I understand because they are me - they have more of me than the others do.  They're special.  They understand.  It's raw and horrible and I hate them because they have all my worst weaknesses.  But there's no way to keep from loving them, too, just for their weaknesses.  I know how it is.

How do I forget this?  How do I not end up face-first on the ground every time I open a document to write, in abject humility for being allowed this?

The feather-heavy touch of My Characters, holding my hand, living and loving and fighting and dying inside my skin.  These beautiful broken people, children from my mind Athena-like, who came to me without invitation and without permission.  Punching through my walls, braiding themselves to my heartstrings, taking me over and dragging me down into the deepest waters of emotional vulnerability.

I'm allowed this.  I can experience this.  The sweet curse, the bitter blessing, the white rose with bloody thorns.  It's a good thing it takes a long day and an unexpected mood change to make me realize this.  If it happened every day, I think it'd be too much for me.  I can only feel so much at one time.