“Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing. Maybe even the best of things. And no good thing ever dies.”
I had a lovely night a few weeks ago. Funny, because typically it’s the sort of thing I can’t wait to share with people, but circumstances being what they are, I’ve been very quiet about it. I haven’t spoken of it, save to one very close friend, and I’ve tried not to act differently, although for the first few days, I felt a constant smile on my lips and a spring in my step that I was loath to suppress. I’m not sure what I expected… come to think of it, I don’t think I really expected anything. I wouldn’t have known what to expect, after what had happened. It was a dream come to life for me, and in my experience… well… dreams typically don’t come true.
“Why did they send you over anyone else? How should I react? These things happen to other people. They don’t happen at all, in fact…”
Typically, when something big is about to happen, for better or worse, I can’t help but think about it, and imagine it. If it’s a bad thing, I imagine the worst possible scenario. If it’s a good thing, I conjure up the best, something reality could never hope to live up to. But in this case, to my complete shock and amazement, it was exactly, to the letter, the way I’d hoped. I’d gone out and made preparations, just in case, all the while shaking my head and telling myself it’d never happen. But it did. It was something I’d been imagining, in some form or another, for a very long. And it was everything I’d ever wanted.
Later, as I drove home, possibilities and impossibilities whirled in my mind. I was giddy with the thought of something I’d wanted for a time actually being mine, like a kid who’s got his Christmas present picked out in February. More than that, though, I was reeling with the absence of a weight that had sat on my shoulders for about three years. I still remember the day it settled on me fairly well. I watched someone I loved more than anyone I’d ever met drive off on a cross-country move that morning. I’m thankful that I didn’t know at the time it was the last I’d ever see of him. The weight only settled more heavily on me about two years later when he said, “I’ve met someone.”
Since then, I’d figured that any happiness I’d find in the form of another person would be second-rate. After an awful lot of soul-searching, thinking, and utterly unflattering weeping, I was prepared to deal with that. Then… this. I was happy enough for the night, and the possibility, however minute, it might open up to me, but more than that, I recognized it for what it represented to me.
“Life is only halfway in our hands
Years have passed while I was making plans
And I could never find the words
I always felt absurd, and always outside
But now I know I shouldn't care
There's a song already there
Waiting inside
What a feeling… the laughter that was dead is coming…”
I’d spent a great deal of time – too long, in fact – staring backward, mourning what I’d lost and burying my nose in the past, going over and over it again, like the last paragraph of a book I’d read and just couldn’t stop poring over, thinking that if I’d studied it enough, I could will it to end differently. Now, this night, for the first time, I was tempted to pick up a new book. I felt something stir to life, and I began to hope.
It hasn’t been an easy time for me the past few years. I’ve been through mental and emotional hell, mostly of my own making. I’m far too analytical, too emotional, and I take everything far too seriously. For so long, I’ve been asking the same question over and over in my head – “Why?” It’s a question there’s never really a good answer for, because if you’re someone like me (or a three year-old child, take your pick), there is never a satisfactory answer.
In all my musings, I’ve always held a few theories about the nature of life in general. One of them is that there’s a bit of a balance to everything. As such, I’ve long suspected that the really, really good things… the intense ones, I mean, don’t last. Bright flames burn out quickly, and sparks haven’t a snowball’s chance in hell of igniting a fire unless they’ve got a good foundation. For me, anyway, I always seem to carry a set of flints in my pocket. I can’t help it. I like bright, explosive things. Which is kind of odd, because I was always scared of fireworks as a kid. Still, a part of me embraces fear like a prodigal son. Like flying. I was always terrified of flying, until necessity forced me to overcome it. Now I stare the fear down when I have to.
“I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason,
Bringing something we must learn
And we are lent to those who help us most to grow, if we let them
And we help them in return
And I don’t know if I believe that’s true,
But I know I’m who I am today because I knew you…”
It’s amazing what you can learn from things if only you choose to see them in a certain way. I had someone tell me recently that he felt we’d become friends for a reason, that maybe he was meant to step in and encourage me to be more than I’d thought I could. And while I can’t deny a certain allure to him, I can’t deny that he’s right. I’m certain that we were meant to find each other, for him to inspire me to actually have a little faith in myself (no pun intended), and I can only hope that I can do a little something for him in return, whatever that might be. And it makes me think that this person, the one behind my lovely night, was meant for something, too. To make me believe that there is, in fact, life after depression. I’m guilty of being sick as a dog and never believing I’d feel well again, being sad and momentarily forgetting what it was to be happy. I’d give anything in the world if this one happy night were to stretch into something more. But if it doesn’t, I’ll see it for what it was – the knowledge, and the possibility, that someday, some other night could be.
“There's nothing left for me to say
Wanting what I need this way
And when I'm feeling low I know
I need to stop
And someday you will see
All the more you want
All the more you'll need me
All the while I'll be on to something more
I want something more
I want something more than this…”
