I've been talking about the Bottom without fully describing it. I wrote a piece about it a couple of years ago. You can find it here.
For quite some time, I've been trying to fully articulate to myself why it is that I don't regard the Greatest Day, as the day I came closest to suicide, as my Bottom. I've used the respective terms for quite some time, and they both feel totally right, but still, this seeming contradiction has struck me as kind of odd. Friday's piece reawakened that feeling.
I was on the cushion for only about thirty seconds this morning before the answer came to me. On the Greatest Day, it was like I was in a deep pit during the blackest night I had ever experienced. Everything was dark. By following the breath, I found my way through the night, and eventually dawn broke, and far above me at the mouth of the hole I was in I could see light. Things weren't as dark.
"I gotta find a way out of this hole," I said. Then I looked around and grabbed the only tool that appeared to be available to me. I picked up my shovel and resumed digging.
The Bottom was the day I finally put the shovel down.