Like A Bridge

You know that I have not yet healed. And, I know it has been difficult for you all to watch me fail and try and fail again. No more will I put you through this. I will be spending this Christmas alone and however many more Christmases it will take until I can return with a smile.

The letter was sent from my home address so that the recipients, my family, could not know where I had gone. Riding uphill in the back seat of a taxi, I see my temporary home in the distance. Moonlight engulfs the hills that surround the small cabin. A dim light like a star in a black sky. It is not the brightest star, but it is enough to show that there is still life inside. There is still hope.

Once the noise of tyres along the gravel fades into reality, all that accompanies me as I stand before the front door is silence. A deafening, heavy silence. Exhale. It feels like all I do now is exhale, I am not breathing anything in at first. Life escapes from me with each breath I take. Nothing in return. Just death.

Hesitantly, I push the door open and am greeted by a roar of festivity. The pine tree graces the ceiling with its branches open wide for a hug. After closing the door shut, I stand before the tree. The bright and inviting and happy tree. I should be happy, too. This tree and all of its shiny decorations and beaming lights are supposed to fill my heart with a joy that only comes around once a year - but lasts forever. The bulbs are burning my eyes, causing them to swell and stream. I hear the tree weep. Its open branches drooping slightly at the defeat of failing to make me happy.

With murky eyes, my solitude and I walk over the wooden floors towards the living room. The room where life is most accessible. A large sofa spans its wings against the walls with a table at the centre filled with coasters and board games. My solitude makes its presence intensely felt but it is not grand enough to play or drink with me. Besides, it has been almost a year since I have swam in that intoxicating liquor - just another attempt at escaping the grief that has built a home inside of me. This sober heart still beats too slowly.

Lifting the delicate needle of the oak record player, I gently rest it on the vinyl already in place. Moments spent anticipating the sound that will soon fill the cold lifeless air. When you're weary, feeling small. The smooth soul of Elvis's voice paralyses me. Like the softness of a human's touch on your cheek to ease the mark of red left by another hand. I'm on your side. I want to believe that he is, I desperately do. But times have been too rough to believe even the sweetest of symphonies.

Have I ever danced before? The music that I cannot turn off makes me question if there is another life where I am dancing. Somewhere, somewhere I am happy. He is on my side and we are spinning and smiling and I have never been happier. It feels like this other life is my real life but I have been given the wrong one and I am stuck in it. How do I live a life that does not belong to me?

I can feel myself decaying the longer I stay in this coffin of isolation. With my head hanging lower, my spine slumping towards the ground and my soles tired, I crawl to the kitchen. Climbing onto the small wooden chair, a typewriter sits opposite me. Paper freshly positioned and the keys calling to be played. Exhale. Manually lifting my weighted eyelids away from my hollow eyes, I watch my surroundings. There is so much beauty to be seen. To be appreciated and to be lived. It is right in front of me, but I cannot see it. Like the colours that fade in a photograph - a memory once joyous, now burdened by the reality of loss. The knowing that it is a feeling that has not returned since. The devastating fear that it will never return.

All of this beauty that I am blind to, I could write about it. I should write about it - especially as my only company is myself. Though, the art has been drained from my heart. All I am left is an unfinished script with running ink for I cannot stop these tears from spilling. Flooding. Drowning. Washed away, into the lights.

It may have been hours I remain in this small wooden seat with my empty eyes seeking the bright bulbs above. Searching for something inside of them to release me from this death. Then, a flicker. A sharp beat of my heart, like a pulse. It is frightened to life by the booming sound of a bell. Emerging from the table with a still blank page, I step towards the front door. Shadowed silhouettes hover over the translucent window. Fear, a more human fear, fills my lungs and puts all their work on pause as I turn the door handle. Preparing to be welcomed by death, I am greeted by life. I am greeted by my family.

They come anxiously pouring into the room. As if their lungs had been paused, too. Now that they are back at work, I can see them breathing in the lonely air that filled the room prior and breathing out a fresh batch. Still in shock and with no words yet expressed, I close the door behind me watching them transform the room. The depressingly dim lights growing brighter and warmer. Everything feels warmer.

While everybody else scatters to set the table, turn on the oven, uncover the dishes, my sister approaches me. A novel is written between the silence of our exchange. How afraid she was, how selfish I had been. Her anger, her relief, her helplessness and her help. All of the letters flying and falling at our feet. 'Merry Christmas,' she says. Into her arms, I crumble. For all of this time, I have been frantically treading water and killing my chance to survive. Using all of my energy on fear and wondering just how I got this far into the water. When all I had to do was float, to breathe, and somebody would save me. 'You cannot do this on your own.' She says, looking into my tired eyes and holding my slumped shoulders. With defeat and acceptance, I nod. 'We are in this together.'

The previously bare table is now unrecognisable, with its glasses of wine and loaves of bread and laughter. I sit at the head of the table watching it unfold. My family decorate each corner of the table as they clink their drinks together and talk about something they watched on the television. The chair directly in my eyeline, in my future, is still empty. It will never be filled in this lifetime. Perhaps, somewhere else he is enjoying his food with me. Maybe we look up from our plates at each other and we nod. I think we are happy.

Instead of trying to claw my way through the realm that separates us, I could try to live in this one. There is enough love seated at this table to fill a million lifetimes with joy. My shell may be broken and there are parts of me missing forever, but each and every person near me now fills those gaps with hope and purpose. A reason to live. So, I inhale all of it. All of the love I am blessed to have. Taking my solitude by the hand, we walk along the bridge - together.