You are at home. You realize it has been three hours since you said you would do the thing. You were supposed to do the thing yesterday. Yesterday is far gone, even though seemingly close. You cannot even distinguish the days of the week anymore, but you do know you have that thing. My friend said, it’s just a phase, everyone goes through it. I doubt it. I think the phases stopped a long time ago.
There was a time when you felt otherwise. It was not always like this. Sometimes it was easy and sometimes it hit you hard, but you always felt included. Not necessarily in anything dramatic, but in life. Its fractions, one by one pieced together like it was supposed to look a certain way, oftentimes in your favor. Or at least, you tried. When it didn´t, you knew what would help. Some daily merging, some nightly convergence. But you´d see the thing is still here.
As the time passes by like a mellow wind through your hair you start becoming more aware. The left side of your body feels heavy but so is your right one, especially the right one when you think about it. And it’s best not to think about it. You start seeing your friends less and start noticing their sad faces more, but you are afraid to ask, or more afraid to hear, what you always are afraid of saying yourself. You don’t want to burden them. No one wants a burden. Then you sip a couple of drinks and you are all back again having a great time, like in the old times.
Until you wake up. You check your phone, nothing’s changed. Same emails with sort of different subjects, just as any conversation you would have with that one friend you always feel hopeful to see. You think, you’d gather some brightness, some raw buoyance. Maybe they would lend you those little fancy rose-colored spectacles before they warn you to be careful not to break them. You can´t get mad because you know you would. But you know, five minutes into the combined brisk air, you’d stop following along. You can’t. You’d think, the next time you see each other, it will be different. They will be happy and you will be happy for them too.
And you will probably wait. There will always be a new chance, a better chance, a better hand to hold you when the fear arrives, better steps to lead the way, better sounds to hear when you keep squeezing your eyes shut.-can´t keep your eyes open.
But, the thing, the thing is still here. Sometimes, it feels as if nothing else is truly happening besides it. Like everything is just another bucket of wall paint smelling pleasant, but terribly on the cracks of the walls. But you still keep painting. You use all the colors you have left. The thing is so stubbornly here.
You do feel good. You feel grateful. You understand what life is, within its own bumpy paths chosen by mistake and realized too late. All the shapes are becoming more blurry each day but somehow always manage to spark the same magnitude of sentiment the second they appeared in your life. But again, you keep quiet, because no one wants a burden. By yourself, you can bear the heavy load, when they all leave. They always leave but it never feels less painful, it never feels lighter. Each time you hope the burden will leave as they do and maybe it will, maybe it does.
Except for the thing. The thing is still, relentlessly here.
