The end
Everything was white. White and clean with just a small wave blocking the view. The wave was a sheet. The wall was white, the baseboard was white; had there not been air going in and out, a chest rising and falling it could have passed for heaven. It wasn’t heaven.
As soon as the reality set in that this was still life the weights began to come down. They fell as they so often did, not violently, not with an immediate pain but as if they were arguments piled high upon the existence clung to during these times. Career, family, missed hopes, dreams, opportunities and on and on and on. They all settled upon that same chest that began to heave with the exertion. The weights were all around, omniscient in their being and yet non-existent and therefore not fixable.
Were they a clear problem a clear solution might have been arrived upon. A solution might have been devised to beat them back, at least keep them at bay. Yet in all the years during which they made their periodic appearances, in concert or singly, it seemed their ace in the hole, fate, trumped all devices, schemes and tactics. Time, slow and painful time, seemed the only thing worth clinging to. Time was the only certain thing to make them pass. Rolling over in bed they all washed over and over until there seemed no solution, no hope, no way out save the ending of that time. Even that occasionally couldn’t come quickly enough.
To end the time, to stop it in its tracks by some act was unthinkable. Doing so merely transferred this pain to others, something unconscionable and certainly unfair. And yet during these times it was obvious, or so it seemed, that remaining made others a part of this pain. Being around drug them into a situation they neither deserved nor understood and that couldn’t be explained even by the one experiencing it firsthand. It all seemed so…unfair, even though fairness was more pipe dream than actuality.
Being made this way or becoming this way was as factual and as clear as having ten fingers and ten toes. The condition one found oneself in was undeniable. There was as much probability of ridding oneself of it as there was of growing a fifth limb or third ear. It would not happen, and anger, although it could envelope at any time, was as effective as playing horseshoes with hand grenades. The game was short lived and someone always got hurt. The only fix to this problem was resolution.
To resolve to doggedly resist, get through these times and rely on time to dissolve the weights. That, that, was what had to be done. Breath in and out, rise from bed, shower, go to work, come home and care for oneself to hopefully emerge without shame or guilt or regret of the human staring back from the mirror. That was the goal. In the meantime, and at these times, the search for forgiveness would have to begin, “I’m sorry, I’m dying as fast as I can.”