Sometimes I look in the mirror and see no one. Or I walk into a crowded room and feel invisible. Sometimes, time seems to stand still and I somehow fade into the backdrop. I have taken to bouts of sadness, instead of shooing them away I revel in them until I feel immersed in my sorrow that I can’t breathe. But I forget the pain at times and bathe in the sunlight shone by others, taking it in; hoping that this is the life line that will draw me out of my deep dive into sorrow and bring me back to equilibrium.
I remember the first time I saw the sea. It was after a 13 hour drive in a rickety minibus, sat uncomfortably in a folding seat hinged on one side. Slowly trekking on a pothole filled road. The journey was similar to the movement of peanuts in a pan over a fire, with the shifting and flexing of a wrist they are shoved from one end to the other while slowly marinating in the heat of the fire. After 23 years of living in a landlocked country, I stood at the beach drained of physical strength and yet in awe to the point of despair while watching what looked like an unending blanket of unsettled water swing back and forth on the sandy beach I stood at. My being stirred with a mix of being overwhelmed, fearful and awestruck by what my brain tried to make sense of – water that touched the sky but did not envelope me where I stood. This is nowhere near where my sadness gets me.
A simple song on surrendering, drifting and simply wanting to know a person’s location launches me headfirst into the bottomless canyon of sadness. All the while I am physically sat in a vehicle on autopilot, barely holding onto the steering wheel; failing to account for my actions.
Yet the world keeps turning, barely noticing me or my emotions. Can you see my pain? Do you hear my cry while I laugh? Can you see the tear lines on my face? Can a loss like mine call for a moment’s silence and bended knee? I know you can’t relate but do you at least see it? The pain? The sadness? The sorrow? Or am I that good at hiding it? Or just invisible?
I stood in a hall full of people hoping for a warm embrace, a reassuring touch, any wordless acknowledgement but instead conversations, greetings, laughter and confused stares flooded my surrounds. Like the eye of a hurricane, I stood untouched by the goings on around me. Like a stranger at a party, friendless and out of place; hoping and wishing to get away and yet yearning to be seen.
And so I embrace the dark to wallow in my sorrow, I coddle the emotions that draw me to the depths of despair, I walk on the ice barefoot grimacing at the pain but happy for the comfort of feeling. I walk alone with sadness as my closest confidante, because between us we know the truth that no one can know. The truth that sets these emotions free, the truth that without surrendering to these that flame that went out will haunt me for the rest of my days. And the mud of sadness will slowly turn into a quagmire which will suck me in without a rope of light to rescue me.
So here I lay on a cold floor huddled up with a block of ice covered in a wet blanket in the rain, slowly suffering from hyperthermia.
Send help.
penpushers 