When I wake, I feel a resounding breath of relief in my throat that it is not to the darkness. Groggy and still clouded with sleep, I sit up slowly. Twilight strikes the closed blinds, and without needing to check my watch, I gather it's around 5:30 in the afternoon. I have slept for roughly an hour, and that doesn't surprise me. I am not typically a nap person. Unless I have had an exceptionally bad day at work, I summarize night is for sleeping. During the day, there is too much to do.
At least, that's how I used to look at it. Despite my better senses, I have found myself without energy in recent days. All I want to do is rest. I know this is a symptom of depression, and at this point, I neglect to be surprised.
What about waking in the dead of night to the sound of my tears? What about losing my capability to focus because of my mindless dwelling on mistakes I can never correct? What about needing to keep constantly busy lest my sorrow catches up with me? What about feeling so sorry for myself that it turns into some deranged version of self-hatred? Are those symptoms for depression?
When did my life become so disorganized? When did I lose focus on what is really important?
There is no point in reciting this to myself. I know it all already, and need no reminders.
What I do need, though, is a good therapist.
Or psychiatrist.
Or man-eating psychiatrist.
I grumble at myself, closing my eyes. There is no use. Even if I did seek therapy, I wouldn't be able to sit through the session without wishing the line of questioning was coming from your lips and not some faceless person. Not someone who doesn't know me at all. I don't want to be judged right now.
Goddammit, where are you?
Determined to keep awake, I stagger for the door. Having been drunk several times in my life, I concede to wonder if I consumed that Jack Daniels Ardelia brought home a few days ago. No…I'm trying to give that stuff up. It's downstairs where I have no intention of touching it.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to become an alcoholic, but I've seen the consequences of that. My brother ended up in rehab several years back…a lot of years back. I was still in the orphanage. At some point, he stopped writing me. I never knew what became of him.
It's aggravating…knowing I have family out there but not knowing where they are. Hell, they could all be dead and no one would tell me. One of the greater disadvantages of orphanages. We lose track of each other.
Besides, with everything I have to worry about, adding an additional charge of liquor will do little help to my bankbook or state of mind. In my foggy thought process, I'm glad that much remains obvious.
I grin to myself, genuine, the first in several days. Through everything, I do have some wits about me. Thank God for that.
I stop at my door and inhale a deep breath.
I blink.
I smile.
I smell you. The fragrance is sweet, heavy. You stood there for a while, didn't you? Watching me as I slept…watching me as I dreamt of you.
The sensation that grips me makes my knees buckle, and I cannot stand. I struggle for balance but lose, my body plummeting to the floor, hard enough to hurt, or at least make me frown…but I barely notice.
You were here. You WERE here.
You heard me.
The tears that spring to my eyes are not of sadness now. I hesitate to call it relief, for the word is so small. Two syllables hardly does justice to how I feel. To what I feel. You were here, by God, so you heard me. You've heard everything. I was foolish to believe you couldn't.
You've always heard me, even when I didn't hear myself.
After the reprieve dwindles, I find myself lost once more, even a little angry. Do I have a right to be angry? Probably not. But that doesn't excuse the fact that you WERE here…where are you now? Now that I'm awake, now than I can tell you all those things you need to hear? Why do you insist on prolonging my torture?
If it's vindication, then I say you've had your revenge. You are entitled to it. That I can understand.
Slowly, still weak from the impact of my discovery, I manage to stand, supporting myself on wobbly legs. I don't trust my steadiness but make no move to sit.
I find it's time I start regaining my strength.
A surge of air rushes through me. I hate this feeling of weakness. I always have. What did you see when you looked at me? All those things I asked you to see? I hope so.
But then I don't. I don't want to become dependent, needy. Survival of the fittest was my motto for many years. It still is. How else do you suggest I get out of bed every morning? I need to survive, but I also need to adjust to doing so without you.
I need to be strong. I need you to see that I am strong. But I also need you.
I've become a walking contradiction.
It comes to a point where wanting and needing blend into one in the same. I suppose, out of everything, what I truly need is forgiveness. To speak my apology and take the outcome, whatever it is.
I don't deserve you.
How is it that simply knowing you were here can make me feel so much better? Knowing that you watched over me, heard me? What did you see? Do you feel pity? I don't think I can accept your pity. But I also don't expect it to be offered. Much like I don't expect you to be merciful, or even like what you see. Still want what you see. But at least you know, somewhere, wherever you are, that I know this now.
Right now…I can live on that. As for tomorrow, who can say?
My hopes are far too high, but I'm beginning to realize that even the most outlandish of goals can come true. Slowly, strength returns to me, and I am able to move without quivering. I stand in the doorway for a long time, embellishing myself in your scent, surprised by the comfort it gives.
How could I have not known this before? I spent years hating them, masking the sad reality that all the while I was one…just the same…seeing you no differently than they did, while you saw me in ways I never before fathomed. In kindness instead of respite. Do you know how much I needed that? How much I still need it? I appreciated you without knowing it for myself, without telling you how much it meant to me, still means to me.
Thank you.
I must ask another question…and hope you hear me. You heard me before, didn't you? Is it foolish to think you will again?
Why did you come by? Why do you still care? You're a monster, everyone knows that. Everyone except me, of course. They know it all right…they know everything. But tell me, what brought you here? What still brings you here? You know I deserve nothing from you. Ten plus years of neglect and you repay me in the kindest of ways.
You listen. Why? Now, especially now, why?
The answer I summarize is foolish and presumptuous, but it gives me comfort. At the moment, I don't care. I want to believe…and right now, I do…if only for a second, I allow myself this one indulgence, this one morbid, outlandish, laughable, schoolgirl-foolish thought.
It makes me smile.
Perhaps on some level, you need me, too.
* * *