January 16, 2015

  • Written on January 10th

    January 10th 2015… Seems strange to type that when I would love to be able to date this: January 10th 2005. It's just one number off. Just one little number away from the first best year of my life. I can't believe it's been a decade already. Time is moving so fast. How can it be that I'm going on 24? 14 was my favorite age before 21, and now I'm a whole decade away from the me I was at age 14. How I long for that age and that year. What I wouldn't give to be able to drop the 1 and bring back the 0. 2005 was incredible. Do you think 2015 could ever live up to it's decade-younger counterpart? Could I live up to my decade-younger counterpart? Is that even possible this late in the game? I don't know. I wish I did, but I don't. But I'm trying. I envy her. I wish I was her. I wish I was even just ten percent the girl she was. She had all the answers. She always knew what to do. And more so, she always did it. How? I have no idea. But she did. Then there was the time she seemed to fall asleep and when she slept, she slept for years. It was around early 2006 when all the excitement of her year of triumph seemed to finally catch up with her and wear her down. So she fell asleep, and she didn't wake up again that year. She slept through the next year too, and the year after that, and the year after that. Finally around 2011 I began to realize that this was more than just sleep, she was in a coma. And comas are fickle in the way that you never know for sure how long they'll last, if the person will ever wake up at all, and if she does, will she even be the same person? Will she even remember? A coma isn't something to be taken as lightly as a year or two of sleep. And as the years passed by, she grew older and older, while still in the coma. Where was her mind? Where was her heart? Where was her spirit? I never knew. And I never knew if they would ever come back from wherever they went while she slept. It was in late 2011 when I hit rock bottom. She was gone without a trace, and all I had left were the distant memories of the girl who fell asleep long ago. It was then that I surrendered all hope and finally gave up on any chance of making another triumphant return. I had lost the battle and I knew it. Only thing left to do was pull the plug. So I did. I let go of life support and waited patiently to watch her slip away completely, one last time. But then a miracle happened… In early January of 2012, when all signs of life had finally vanished, and the sheet was being pulled over her head once and for all, she twitched. There was a sign of life; a glimmer of hope. And then it seemed to all come back at once. I remember opening the door of this very house I'm in right now, and stepping outside into the sunlight. I remember being blinded by the sun, a long lost friend of mine, and loving that blindness. Could it be… I was waking up? And as the year progressed, it became more and more blatantly obvious that she was awake from the coma, as if nothing had ever happened, and the sun shined every single day, even when the sky was grey, even when it rained. The light was back and I was back and GOD DAMN did it feel great to be alive again! And I lived every moment. I truly lived in every single moment of that year. Every month seemed to get better than the last, and it was that year that every day was the best day of my life. What a wonderful, wonderful awakening. And I rejoiced, and cried out in tears of joy and gratefulness, because for the first time in my life, I knew what I had. I knew it was perfect, and I didn't go a day without being utterly thankful from the bottom of my un-broken heart. Turns out humpty dumpty could be put back together again. And it was the first time in my life that my shattered, ripped, torn, broken, broken heart became un-broken. Now tell me, how could that be? It was a blissful time in my life. Pure and simple bliss. And I was at peace. For once in my life I was in complete peace with everything in life. Of course there were bad days, of course there was heartbreak, of course the sun went behind clouds sometimes. But in each and every day, whether good or bad, I was able to find peace. And I wrote and I wrote about this lovely, lovely awakening that I had longed for for so, so long. I was back and I thought I'd never leave again… I was wrong. I remember the exact day the coma returned. It was a night actually. It was December 19th/20th, aka the eve of the "end of the world", when my house burned down, taking my whole life down with it. And once again, I disappeared. I couldn't believe it. And for the first 6 months I was in shock and denial. She'll come back. She'll come back, you'll see. But she didn't. And it was on June 19th 2013, exactly 6 months to the day that she left again, that it all hit me like a train. The denial was over and the reality sunk in. She was asleep again. And the even more frightening realization was that this time it might not just be a coma… This time the burns could've actually knocked her out for good. No rising pheonix here. There were only ashes. And there are still only ashes. 2013 came and went, and I clung to the hope that maybe 2013 was just doomed to be a bad year, and things will get better in 2014. They have to. But they didn't. They only got worse. And before I knew it, it had been two whole years since I was alive and awake. And I'm just so terrified of living another year in a coma, or worse. I keep wanting to be hopeful, I keep waiting for my olive branch. But every time I get to hoping for this to be a better year, the year that I come back to life again, I turn myself away from those thoughts and run in the opposite direction as fast as I can, because my heart - what's left of it - just can't take another let down again. So I try not to get my hopes up, I push away all feelings of the hope I want to have. I can't take another year of torture. I wish I would wake up. I wish this could be my come-back year. I wish so badly that things will get better. But I have this sinking feeling that things will only get worse. I hope to God that I am wrong. But I won't get my hopes up in case I am not. So what can I do? Well, the only thing I know how to do. I can write. And I can stay here in my writing and write myself away into the better days of yesteryear. And it's in yesteryear that I will stay, hunkered down to ride out the storm, until the day that I finally make my triumphant return, if that day ever comes. But a decade ago new horizons were beginning, and three years ago they did the same. If there's anyone out there listening, please help. Oh, how I long to be myself again. Oh, how I crumble when I am not. That's all for now, I guess. I will try to write more later. Going downstairs to get some coffee now.