“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
— T.S. Eliot, from Four Quartets
I walked between crowded bookshelves that reached high above my head. The lights running across the ceiling were a faded yellow, casting golden shadows down the aisles. The books high above my head were mostly organized, left untouched since being put away so far out of reach. At eye level, they were organized by interest; the recently read were left half out of their lines, reaching to the next reader, worn, faded covers, and rubbed-out titles. Poetry made its stand in the back, hugging the sides of a loveseat with red cushions and distressed upholstery, the only blank space above it was filled with an old black and white portrait of T.S. Eliot.
If you sat in the chair and looked slightly to your right, on the side of the shelf, someone had carved A & M in tiny letters with a heart; the wood around it was spider-webbed with cracks. I wondered if they were still together.
Silently, I walked each aisle, glancing briefly at books I’d already read, like an old childhood friend or a good memory; they caught my eye as I looked for something new.
Half-read books felt like a jumble of chapters that mixed. It felt harder and harder these days to find something of great interest — they had all begun to blend, authors sounded the same, and the plots became a repetitive loop.
As I approached the aisle’s end, I stopped, tucked into the corner, as something with no title caught my eye. A dark green cover that looked familiar in a way I must have seen it before somewhere else in the store.
Taking one of the books, I made my way to the loveseat, sinking in, I opened to the first page.
Dedicated to: A, may you find your purpose.
~ M
I glanced at the carving on the wood: A & M. I wondered if they were connected. Flipping to the next page, I began to read.
Entry 1.
I had no roots. If I left right now, it would only hurt to say goodbye to the mundane things I had become accustomed to; I would miss how I knew every corner of the town and never needed a map to find something. I would miss the memories carefully placed down
each street, the little unconscious things I would think of as I passed places. Somewhere out there was a new place, empty of all these things, waiting for me to fill it with new ones.
Life has a way of panning out perfectly and suddenly dropping off, into what you never knew until you fell. I felt the fall coming, and when it did, I went with it. I figured if I had nothing to lose, then saying no would only have me wondering “What If”
Old memories of past times and the feeling of imminent betrayal pried at the edges of my mind, but I refused to let that affect me. I decided to live in the possibility that maybe this was different.
I felt like I was completely free-falling, and what would be at the bottom was a long list of options. And I knew how I would handle the next year would determine that. I had never done this before, finally free in a different kind of way, yet still able to hold the boundaries I used to let go of so easily, but pride and jealousy mixed, and I couldn’t let go of the past. If it happened ten times before, what would be so different that it wouldn’t happen again? The bottom of the fall would make or break me.
I lay under a duvet, my head sunk into too many pillows, the warmth of my body seeped into the bed under me, creating a warm alcove where I lay. My bed was up against the glass, and the curtain muddled with the blankets, adding to the quiet, cozy feel. The room was a reflection of the dull brown and white bedspread, accents of muted colors, and furniture were placed artfully around the small room.
Across from me was the front door, and to its right was a small kitchen with no rooms aside from a bathroom. It was simple, clean, and small. They say your home reflects your mind, yet it looked anything but. My mind was a frantic jumble as I stared out the half-open curtain at the rain running down the glass. I rolled onto my side to better see the storm. The soft patter of rain on the roof did little to soothe my wild mind. Looking outside, it seemed as tho I were floating, 22 floors off the ground, the clouds lay low during the rain, muffling the sound of traffic below.
The sinking feeling in my stomach pulled at my heart strings, what if, what if, yet at the same time urging me not to entertain a single idea. My mind was detached; it didn’t care and wouldn’t. I could convince myself of anything, yet I knew it would only be true if I felt it, and I didn’t.
The past had its fingers worked into every part of my consciousness. I longed for the time when I was free of prying hands and the pressure of others that would push me into a fall, I wanted back my peaceful mind and lonely days where there was no one to talk to, I craved to have my heart back and my mind whole, it was pulling me apart to wait. It felt like planting the most fertile seeds in the driest grounds. I begged for growth, but it was slow and unwatered.
The raindrops ran down the glass faster, the downpour picked up pace, and I longed to reach outside and pull its life into the ground, to fuel my dreams and make those ideas and fantasies real.
I longed for the time when newness was exciting and unique, I thought back to the beginning when I had a new freedom that allowed me to explore the world without judgment, I had become a detailed mosaic of everyone and everything I had experienced yet the darker things had also woven themselves into my pattern, but I still fought to pick them out, I wanted to replace them with detachment, yet the only option was to face the problem and sit with it, I was forced to let the fall finish and kicking at the air would change nothing.
It’s interesting how we think we manage ourselves so well, yet we still get lost in the process. Our ability to become incredibly attached to anyone and anything predicts when we would fall and how hard. I knew I would land softly inside, but who can predict what hasn’t happened?
Featured image via Polina Zimmerman on Pexels
