Faded Photographs and Silenced Voices

There comes a point for every heartache, every mistake, every fallen romance, when enough time has passed that faces begin to fade from the picture and names from memory.
These faceless figures cease to represent people, and begin to represent only an idea or an ancient era, all but lost to the sands of time. They remain to instruct, no longer to damage.
As a wound closes, but is not yet healed, such are the nameless familiar faces in our dreams. They are the enemies of our heart who are powerless to inflict more harm, but the pain still lingers, the wound still throbs and aches. This pain is a reminder, lest the wound is reopened in some other way. So we favor the injured area, shielding it, but in turn we are also closing it off from the world entirely.
As a scar remains, yet the memory of its origin may not, such are the faceless memories we recall when a song or a smell brings them into our peripheral view. In a moment, your heart remembers a feeling, or a lesson, but not a reason. You only clutch the scar absentmindedly and remember that there was pain, at some time, for some reason, caused by some person.. Only a remnant of a fragment of a memory of a heartache remains. Only a distant reverie. Only a scar.

Zombies and Burgers

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

"We're going to be okay," my father sighed, barely audibly.

I had been engrossed in a zombie novel as my parents and I enjoyed a break from 100+ degree weather. They spoke softly to each other across the table from me. I hadn't been listening to their conversation. It mostly involved the details of their imminent move across three states and frankly, zombies interested me more.

That simple phrase uttered by my father is what snatched me back from my reverie. I took my attention from my book to glance between my parents. They were holding hands and looking into each other's eyes, sharing a moment that I supposed was the sum of the heartache and joy accumulated over 40 years of marriage. A chill ran up my spine at the eerie sound of those words.

“We’re going to be okay.”

Those words are rarely the cheerful melody accompanying a life free of worry or concern, a life barely lived. People rarely say them as they whistle along with a spring in their step. Generally, they’re spoken with the fresh memory of a terrible battle barely survived looming over, or through the fog of uncertainty for what lies ahead.

Then, like a boulder plunged into the ocean, it sank into my heart – the reality and gravity of everything behind me and ahead. There I sat, 23 years old, divorced, unemployed, penniless and soon-to-be homeless. I had been living as though transition was a permanent state. Soon, my parents would embark on a new adventure to pursue their dreams, and I will set out to rebuild a life on a foundation of failures and shattered hopes. As I considered this, my heart was challenged. Could I endure so patiently and with such thankfulness all the weight of this world for the next 40 years? Could I then visit the memories of my sufferings in a single glance and whisper, "I'm going to be okay"?

Breathing

Friday the 13th, July 2012

I don’t want to turn this page. I’m afraid of the tears that will follow if I do. I’ve only survived this long because I never sit still long enough to process the questions that nag me like little flies I am always swatting away.

People have always depended on my strength, on my ability to force my own needs aside in order to support another’s weight until they’re able to stand again. All the while, no one offers to support me until I can stand. So, I just stand. I never had another option.

I still don’t know where the strength comes from to get myself out of bed every morning, when my soul is so empty and my body so weak. There is often no distinction between the reality I wake to and the dream I wake from. I live in a fog somewhere between the living and the dead, and I am neither. My feet carry me, my hands take me through the motions of living, but I know I’m not really living… I’m just breathing.

This is all familiar and safe. The world I’m gazing into, however, is not. I stand on the threshold and venture to set one foot on the path. My new friends and elders are reaching for my hand and encouraging me to find a new strength in vulnerability. It's such a foreign concept to me. Before I can reconsider, the door slams behind me and I stumble headlong onto the path.

There it is. There I am, covered in mud and blood and tears, face flushed with shame and legs too weak to raise me. My secrets, fears, bruises, scars and diseases are laid bare before this new world. All I can do now is take the hand that is reaching for me, take another breath and walk through the salty storm of tears.