Sleep is solace. It is a moment for you to break away from the would be “real world” and find solitude in your imagination. To some, it is as natural as breathing; to slip away into a dreamland. To others, it is elusive.
I cannot close my eyes. They refuse to shut.
I lie in my bed and gaze intent at the ceiling, as if I am burning a hole into it.
My mind is blank.
I suppose, that this is a form of sleeping. Thinking nothing but empty thoughts. Dreaming of nothing but what could have been. Feeling nothing but this dull and constant ache.
I do not move for the eight hours I am allotted. I lay on my back with the half moon my only light and wait. I wait until the sky begins to lighten to a pale green.
Then I become alive again. I move my frozen limbs, I climb out of my bed and wrap a blanket around my shoulders. I walk outside through my back door, and scale the ladder of the tree house.
I then watch the sun rise.
A start of a new day in which I will do nothing, talk with no one, and return to my autopilot state.
I feel so hollow. I hate this feeling of not being loved. I fear I will never be loved again.
I have a park in my neighborhood. It is picturesquely placed by a creek. There is a tall, sturdy tree that was born and grown on the shore of this river. It has a limb that hangs over the brook like a protective arm.
I sit there. I watch the water race far below my feet. Sometimes I will throw in sticks or leaves and watch them chase each other.
This is the extent of my life. This is what I have come to; rooting for inanimate objects as they zoom down the stream. I do this for hours.
The branch is breaking. I know that sitting on such a precarious thing is dangerous. What can I say? I like to live life on the edge.
I know that this particular placement is not smart. But I do not care. Perhaps it will snap one day and plunge in the river. Taking me with it.
Yesterday, as I sat, hidden in my tree and away from prying eyes, I went people watching. As I watched, I saw something that tore at me.
They were elderly, and the man held his wife’s arm tenderly, helping her hobble on what looked to be a bad hip. They walked so slowly, and carefully. From what would have normally taken me three minutes to walk, took them over ten minutes. It was not because of their age – though that was a factor – no, they were gazing around at all of the wonderful things that nature had created. They were drinking in all of the sites.
I was still thinking of them, long after they had gone.
They had such little time left, it seemed. They probably had five years tops before they passed on. Yet, they were spending their most precious moments they had left together, in humble admiration at the wonders of life.
So, I climbed out of my tree, and spent the rest of the day walking at their pace, and though I had walked this town a thousand times, I saw things that I had never seen before.
Nature.
People.
Belongings.
Love.
Life.
I stared at each house as I passed, and began to notice things to an extent of feeling as if I was prying into their lives. Taking a glimpse into who they were by seeing this self expression mirrored on lawns, landscaping, open windows, closed blinds, cars, animals, and lack of decoration.
I used to think that every house was just something that was mass produced; everything looking alike. But It was all different. Every single one.
When I finally returned home in the evening, everyone is going about their daily activities.
I realize that no one has noticed my disappearance. No one had realized that I had even left.
I feel like I have become invisible, or am slowly becoming so.
I am fading, I am fading.
One day I will be gone.
~C
No comments:
Post a Comment