Living a life is the consequence of many choices and sacrifices. Just choosing to really live or to become hollow won’t ever be good enough. Choosing to live in between is what I’ve done. I don’t have anyone like me to identify with. There are those I envy, and those I look on with disgust. It’s an uncomfortable between. So lonely is my soul! Neither empty nor full, it gets splashed around and jostled like the pet in its cage. I never knew I made this choice. When did I decide how to live? Now I carry this misery that was never something I wanted.
In my mind’s eye, the vision is clear. It came to me in a dream. The summary of my life’s choices and its ultimate outcome. There are two roads; both are clear cut and worn. They come together where I’m standing, and I know I must choose. I’m in the desert. An odd one; where each grain is a tiny speck of gold. The glare should blind me, but I don’t feel a thing. I don’t even squint. I know it’s extremely hot; I see in the distance the heat waves distort my vision. But I can’t feel the desperate, pulsating heat on my skin or the sand against my feet. The two roads are veiled by two velvet curtains. The deepest purple I could ever imagine. I looked up to see what could be holding them here. I can see directly to the stars, and the cloth just continues into eternity. I can’t figure out where to go. I can’t go back, and these two roads are my only choice. I stand there, waiting for something to come to me, getting a little frustrated and anxious.
My dream tells me that this is what makes me the in between. Others may let frustration defeat them and just pick something. Others let anxiety overcome them, and pick a route because they can’t handle the stress. My dreams show me what I do, how I must do things forever. I close my eyes and take a deep breath; sooth apprehension, stroke it into a content slumber. Once I open my eyes again, I see things in a different way. The sun is still bright, but as it burns the sand the rest of the sky is a dark blue. It feels like, and I know it’s true, that it would take the smallest effort to cast away or see through this veil to the stars. This blue veil is only disrupted by the rich sun and the ominous velvet cloth hanging from eternity, trying to trick me. I can see that because I now know everything has intentions, a truth. I look down at my choices again, and I see growth. Green growth sprouting between my decisions. Grass and trees grow to full sizes in just a few heartbeats. I just know—I feel—that these trees reach farther than eternity—farther than the ill intentioned velvet. I know it is more than the evil that lurks in eternity. Before knowing I’ve chosen, without any control at all, I walk into this forest. I haven’t chosen, I’m in shock. Even though this forest is just as suspicious as the curtains now behind me—be it more subtle—I have little room for fear. Just let it go I say, and it is released into an invisible wind, lifting up into nothing.
The choice is made. My sorrow tells me the terrible velvet curtains and beautiful trees played together to trick me into a never ending cave at the end of the grass. I know something makes me different again, although no more answers are given. My dream tells me no more, just that I am to observe and experience. Four golden leaves from a tree at my right fall. I look curiously at them, and remember them from my desert. The gold no longer grains, but existing as these leaves. They glide down and float in front of me. I’m moving unintentionally again. I put one foot on top of two of the leaves. One supports my heel, and the other the balls of my foot. As I lift my left foot the last two glide right into this position. Somehow, the leaves are still floating, even though my weight is added to them. As I stand, or float, there in my sorrow the leaves move forward and steadily get faster. In a moment I’m in the sky. The leaves are gone, and I have huge chocolate wings with a golden shimmer, a gift from the sand that are leaves. I find myself flying in haste, with no place to go. I fly just to fly. To fly gives me a feeling of immense freedom and heartache. I know I will never be rid of the heartache. Its become an extension of me. I can feel it now, such a heavy burden that sometimes I just need to cry. My hopes and dreams are the only thing that keeps me in the air and flapping these strong wings. I want to live a life of great adventure and wonder. To fight, to fly high in the sky, do anything and everything there is to do. But my heartache floods me, and I know it’s my anchor, reminding me I’m only an in between. How easy it was to forget! I feel that this makes me in between, this anchor. I can’t lose it though, and the despair that this is a curse adds weight to it. I’m falling into a dark cloud, despair its name. Trapped, the thick smoke chokes me and has a tight grip around me. Squeezing with all its might, I can’t bring myself to scream in terror. I struggle, and there is a light that doesn’t exist where I’ve been blindly looking. So far away is a gentle glow of pearly white. It gets closer, and its timid nature somehow scares away the vicious cloud. It wraps around me in a soft embrace, and suddenly my body jolts forward into it.
Where I am it is night and I notice I’m wearing a plain white dress. My hair is longer. I now just notice that this all began with me naked and hair cropped to my shoulders. This dress falls to my knees, and my hair to my elbows. I feel changed, about as much as I look. Maybe my heartache retreated with the dark cloud or a new shining weight was added that numbs my anchor. I feel a jolt of shock and worry sweep through me at my anchor’s increasing additions. If this shining weight is an addition to my heartache, it must be so much worse than anything else. How could it overpower such deep sorrow? A silent enemy is one of the worst, I’ve always thought.
I walk now down a stone path, and as I look up from its rusty and grey colors I see mountains and streams and more trees. It is so beautiful; and I’m caught. It snared me in it’s trap. I don’t fight, I just let what happens happen. This time, it feels right. Like this is where I’m supposed to go. I drift down the hill I appeared on, and begin wading into a stream, following the current. I follow it for a long time, the water is freezing. I feel like my legs must be transparent by now. For some reason, I don’t mind. The constant treading through the water allows me some time to think. I am curious how I can feel the cold bite of the water but not the blistering heat of the sun or sand in the desert. A gust of wind blows my hair back and my mind and thoughts are taken away. I continue treading through the stream, but I’m somewhere else. I don’t think of anything anymore, I’m too peaceful now as I ride the wind.
Not long after, I observe from the sky that I walked up another hill possessing one tree that spread out like a fan in all directions for longer than I ever though a tree could. I sit here under it and sleep, living another adventure in my dreams. So this is how I am half living for now. Riding the wind, I know only part of me is enjoying the truths of this dream. The rest of me has to exist without it, and with realities too unsatisfying to accept.
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