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    This is How You Live: This is How, #2
    This is How You Live: This is How, #2
    This is How You Live: This is How, #2
    Ebook118 pages29 minutes

    This is How You Live: This is How, #2

    By Rachel Toalson

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    About this ebook

    this is how you live is the long-awaited followup to award-winning poet Rachel Toalson's debut poetry book, this is how you know. Delving into the depths and mystery of mental illness, Rachel examines what it means to wrestle with depression, daily life, and, ultimately, hope.
     

    Written over the course of a tumultuous year, this is how you live is an honest documentation of life shaken by major depression that culminates into a celebration of life. Divided into three sections—sink, sleep, rise—Rachel's words lift above the despair to produce a work of phenomenal beauty, vulnerability, and triumph, showing readers: this is how you live.

     

    Masterful, vibrant, and emotional, this is how you live is Rachel's fifth book of poetry.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRachel Toalson
    Release dateJun 15, 2019
    ISBN9781393535393
    This is How You Live: This is How, #2
    Author

    Rachel Toalson

    The themes of identity and love amid difficult circumstances often show up in Rachel Toalson's writing, and no matter their age, gender or genre preferences, readers around the world enjoy and anticipate her hopeful message of bravery, transparency and the the human capacity to change the world, at least a small part of it. She is the author of the middle grade fantasy series, Fairendale, (under the pen name R.L. Toalson) about a tyrant king (who may not be quite as bad as he seems) pursuing a group of magical children who become what we know as fairy tale villains, for one good reason or another; the nonfiction Family on Purpose series, which chronicles her family's daily journey into values; and This is How You Know, a book of poetry on the daily ordinary that becomes extraordinary when filtered through the lens of poetry. Rachel Toalson’s own journey into writing is a long and straight-line one. She began penning stories in small-town Texas on white computer paper back when she was a kid. When she got to college, she rose through the ranks of her college newspaper, this time telling true stories. That’s where her writing career began—sitting with sources, gathering information, soaking up the stories of everyday life. In 2015, Rachel ended her newspaper days as a managing editor, with multiple writing accolades accrued over the years, so that she could become a full-time author of both fiction and nonfiction. In her fiction she enjoys crafting tales of quirky characters who are more than what they seem on first glance. In her nonfiction, she enjoys writing about real life, real love, real struggles and the humor underlining much of our human experience. She writes middle grade fiction and picture books under the pen name R.L. Toalson; poetry, memoir and humor under Rachel Toalson; and narrative nonfiction stories and literature under Rachel L. Toalson. Rachel is a regular contributor to Huff Post Parents, Scary Mommy, a Bundle of THYME magazine and many other publications across the world. Born in Houston, Rachel lives with her husband and six boys in San Antonio, Texas, where she faithfully writes 5,000 words a day, five days a week.

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      Book preview

      This is How You Live - Rachel Toalson

      Introduction

      It was a strange year.

      You would think that the year you see one of your biggest dreams come true—which was, for me, the publishing of my first traditionally-published book—you would not be able to contain the joy and satisfaction and pleasure you took from life.

      Instead, I found myself tail-spinning into a season of depression. I launched my book out into the world, did author appearances and signings, taught kids writing at several schools, played the part I needed to play—but even during what would seem to anyone else like a victorious accomplishment, I could feel my smile slipping. I grasped at joy, at prayer and meditation, at rest—anything I could find, but I know how depression works; I’ve wrestled with it for most of my life.

      For me depression tangles around anxiety and obsessive-compulsive tendencies—including but not limited to anorexic thoughts and sometimes even behaviors, all in addition to the unexplainable sadness one might expect with depression and the mostly latent anger one wouldn’t know to expect with depression unless one had experienced it.

      Most depressive seasons I endure what I know will eventually pass by writing, almost obsessively, as though it can save my life (and maybe it does). This depression was different. Perhaps because it hit me during the vulnerable time when a book I’d spent years writing and perfecting released into the world, or perhaps for another reason entirely, I could not write. All the projects I’d been working on—and there were several—ground almost to a halt. Instead of using my work time to write I wanted to sleep or escape the world by reading or sit in my gray-blue wing chair, pretending I was invisible. This lack of desire to write—which had never ever been a part of the equation—scared me. I thought this depression might be the one that broke me.

      And then one day, as I stared at my notebook, I started a poem about the fact that I could not write and ended it with this is how you know it will be bad. And it was as though the words were waiting for permission. They spilled out onto the page, arranging themselves into poetry (as is often the case when I find myself at the bottom of the world). I wrote about my depression, my fears, my worries, my anxiety, my thoughts about myself and my body. I didn’t hold back—because sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is

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