Despite what many think of the abyss, that unlimited nothing below the world and all thought, I do not fear it. Friedrich Nietzsche is often quoted with that famous saying: "...if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." I asked why such a thing was so terrible. Isn't an abyss simply a lack of everything but yourself? If anything it is a mirror, an echo chamber. At least, that is what I thought. I did look into the abyss, but it did not stop at gazing into me. It reached out with open arms and embraced me.

At the time I had been going through a lot of things: dying grandparents, parents finalizing their divorce, moving into an unfamiliar city to find work. I could tell I was stressed and unhappy, but what was i supposed to do except bear it? A friend espoused the wonders of meditation to me, so I tried it one weekend without any expectations.

That's how I found myself here, tired eyes decorated with bags looking into nothing, and a pair of arms darker than night holding me tenderly. I stood there, if you can call it standing without a floor, for a minute or two, allowing this small comfort to be. Then I realized how long it had been since I had gotten a simple hug. Three years, four? I couldn't tell, but decided it had been too long.

I sighed as my shoulders fell a little bit, making me wonder how long they'd been held up without my knowing. In fact I began to notice my whole body beginning to unwind. How had I not realized how tense I was? The arms rubbed up and down over my spine, gently swaying my body from side to side. I felt every ounce of strain leave me as though some unseen rain had washed it away.

Perhaps it really was raining, I felt water drip from my chin. A thumb gloved in twilight velvet traced from my chin to my eyes, swiping away the water. Oh, I'd begun crying without noticing it apparently. Maybe I had been worse off than I thought, if this was all it took to break the dam. The void simply pat my back, telling me without words that it was alright. I tried to hold back at first, but when I felt no judgement in this moment of vulnerability my attempts to rebuild a wall I didn't remember constructing ended up breaking it down even further.

Tears ran down my face without signs of stopping, my shoulders shook with my sobs. I allowed myself to acknowledge what I'd been pushing down. I missed my family, my dusty little town that I grew up in, my friends who I didn't talk to anymore. I missed my life before it became this scary thing I'd always heard about called "adulthood" that I hadn't realized would one day happen to me until it did. Through it all the abyss held me, and by this point I had wrapped my arms around whatever counted as its back as well. God, how tired I had been, still was.

As they always do my tears eventually dried up and I felt a little better after letting them out. My exhaustion had been replaced with a comfy tiredness, as though the abyss was some pickpocket who'd stolen my problems and left one of those little strawberry candies from my grandma's candy bowl in their place. I felt myself be swept off my feet in slow motion and rest upon a bed of moonlight; though, it must have been a new moon since I couldn't see the covers or pillows. Those arms were still wrapped firmly around me, and I drifted into a sleep deeper than any I'd slept before with the smallest of smiles brightening my face.

I woke up the next morning at peace. My problems still existed, but now felt much less heavy, easier to handle. My apartment, once so empty and dark, now felt inviting and lived-in, as if a friend was just in the other room. I didn't know what to call whatever had comforted me last night in my thanks, so I settled on a wordless feeling of gratitude and a smile with closed eyes in my quiet room. The phantom of warm arms encircled my chest again, a silent "you're welcome" from nothing.