You wake up and you don’t know what to do. You lay there looking at the ceiling for a long time, then toss and turn for almost a whole hour, paralyzed with indecision. Your mom calls, and gives you an update on everything mundane that’s happened during the week in her world, and all you can say is, “I’m fine.”
After
you hang up, you try to lay down again, but you can’t go back to sleep.
A vague guilt hangs around your neck for the things you said or didn’t
say, or should have said in a different way. “Phrasing, it’s all about
phrasing,” you say to yourself.
You
get up and take a shower, out of routine, still unsure of where the day
is going, still a distant pang of dis-ease in the antipodes of your
mind, like some lunatic screaming in the distance. This is the only free
time you've had this week, the only chance you've had to do what you
want. So many plans you've made, so many options discovered, so many
ideas generated, only to be frustrated because you didn’t have the time.
And now here it is, laid out in front of you, like a patient etherized
on a table. Now you are free… and the freedom is paralyzing.
You
get dressed, meditate, stretch a little and start off on a walk up the
hill. You listen to some music, and suddenly you find yourself wanting
to soar, to really soar. You start to remember what it is to be alive.
You’re reminded of who you are, and that private part of yourself you
don’t show to anyone; that indestructible place that makes you You.
“Do
people really make it?” you wonder. “Do people really make anything
they dream of while they are locked away in the chains of their own
design?” You become completely obsessed with this feeling of wanting to
be happy, to be content beyond what you've always known. Of trying to
find the in between.
Your
dreams start unfurling again, and somehow, you find yourself smiling.
Hopeful. You can own some small piece of the sky if you really want to.
You can capture some of that gorgeousness you’re forever chasing, never
really knowing if you could really get there, or even into that orbit.
Up
ahead there is a wall of fog, where the houses thin out and run into
the open, undeveloped land. It looks like walking into a cloud. You pass
into the mist and the air is cool and fresh on your face. You soon
become disoriented, and find yourself not knowing which way is up. Emotions swirl inside you.
“I
just want to do something beautiful. I just want to make people feel
for at least a second, that they aren't so alone; that there are other
people in the world that feel the same way; that we are all connected by
that bond—that we all feel that same inconsolable loneliness, and that
it is only when we can express that profound loneliness that we can feel
connected again.”
Mist
from the fog condenses on your glasses, and people walking by can’t
tell that you've been crying. When you come back down back into your
house, you know what you must do.
