For Every Fish, A Season

I have started sleeping in my closet. I’m not exactly sure why, but I feel safe in there. They say it’s okay to not be okay, but they fail to emphasize that you are only allowed to not be okay for a certain period of time and for certain reasons, whereas being okay has no limit and no justification. No one expects you to explain why you’re still okay.

In truth, I am okay, perhaps even more than okay. But I am also absolutely devastated. If you want me to explain why, I simply see no reason I shouldn’t be both. It’s just that I’m always allowed to be okay, but people only want you to be devastated sometimes. I think living in my closet is my way of keeping it contained.

The pond behind my apartment has frozen over. Does that mean the fish inside have all died? Once a year, the pond closes its door and does not open it again until the warmth of spring sets in. Or is it the cold of winter that dies out?

Before I started sleeping in my closet, I used to lock myself in the bathroom and lay on the icy tile floor. I live alone, but I lock the door anyway. No one will ever ask you why you spent so much time in the bathroom. They’re okay with not knowing those sorts of things. Of course, there’s nobody here to notice that I spent three hours in the bathroom the other night, but I like to be prepared to not explain myself.

I looked it up. Apparently the fish don’t die. They swim to the bottom and hibernate. I wonder if they do that because nature gives them no other choice, or if they look forward to the opportunity of a long rest after an exhausting spring, summer, and autumn. Maybe they want to hibernate in the other seasons too, but all their fish friends keep having parties, and missing out would devastate them.

I never shut the closet door all the way. There’s no doorknob on the inside. I figure there isn’t a point in hiding away if you never plan to come out again. Maybe humans need to designate themselves a specific period to burrow out of reach from nature’s endless drama. Even trees give themselves a season to shed their leaves. Not everyone was born to be evergreen.

I don’t always hide in tiny rooms built for no more than one person at a time. I think it’s also nice to hide outside sometimes, with no walls, where there are too many people for people to care about people they don’t already know. You see, there are already too many people. Hear them too many times, and their meaning disintegrates into indiscernible sensory inputs.

I lost someone dear to me a long time ago. He didn’t pass away, yet still, I am devastated. They say these kinds of sensations aren’t supposed to last, but we don’t stop for winter here. Every door remains unsealed, and it is our job to see each of them through. Everything continues, and absence remains eternal. I am not sure why anyone expects it to leave when it only arrived because of what is gone.

We don’t stop for winter here. They tell us it is temporary even though it returns every year.

It is quite warm in my closet. Even without a heater, you wouldn’t be able to tell what season it is from inside. That way, I can pretend it’s winter, even when it isn’t. I can pretend the pond outside is frozen, and there is no choice but to burrow away. And every morning is another first day of spring.