Curtain Call

There are so many things in life that words just can’t adequately describe. Of all of the hardest things to verbally portray, emotions and feelings have to be at the top of the list.

These past twenty-six years have been a bit of a trip. This last decade has been more of a wide-eyed-hold-your-breath-and-try-not-to-scream type ride. So many places I’ve been that I would never go back to, yet I wouldn’t undo going there for anything.

Some people learn life’s lessons easier than others. It seems that I was the one always skipping class when those lessons were being taught and ended up learning them on my own, the hard way.

For years depression and pain seemed to be the only real constants in my life. They became my identity, my personality, and dug their sinister tendrils deep into the fertile soil of my mind. I couldn’t let go. I wouldn’t let go of what I thought it was that made me who I was and what gave me strength.

Fog. I spent years in it. Dark, churning, suffocating fog. Obscuring every ray of hope and light, I was blind even on the brightest of days. Every possibly happy moment was overshadowed by a shadow not my own. Hope was abandoned as I could only see the world through a dark curtain of despair.

Then through a strange twist of luck or fate, we met. Time passed and trust was built and my façade came down; yet you didn’t turn away when you saw all that I hid from the world. The pain and the past that once defined who I was didn’t phase you at all.

Perhaps it was on purpose, or completely on accident, but somehow you began to change me. Little things at first as you chiseled off little pieces of my shell. Giving me a moment here and a moment there where I could breathe, unhindered by the constant weight upon my chest.

To this day I don’t know how you did it, yet somehow you showed me what it is to care. You showed me that I COULD care.

It’s hard to describe how much different life is when you care about someone more than anything else.

I’d be lying if I said that it’s been an easy transition from who I was to who I am now and who I am becoming. The roots buried in me have had years to grow and take hold, and yet their grip is loosening.

So now here I am; here we are. I’m standing on the edge of a new unknown, but I’m not afraid or apprehensive. I’m an actor on the stage of life, staring at the curtain of darkness that I call my past. I close my eyes and wait as I anticipate your signal.

I open my eyes as the lights begin to rise and the curtain is being lifted. I have no lines and I have no script, but somehow I know that things will turn out ok. I face the unknown without hesitation or fear.

You’re my curtain call, a brilliant sunburst in the darkness of my life. You’re more than I could ever say.

*****
I didn’t exactly plan to write what I just did. I sat down and began to type, and that’s what came out. Maybe it’s nonsense. Maybe it has some deep, hidden meanings and truth.

Anyhow, in some abstractly symbolic way, it’s all true.