Matthew's POV
I am so tired. I resorted to a corner in the emergency room, but my mind is fading.
I am living in between. What is in between? Is it being able to feel internally and not externally? Is it the ability to feel your blood pulsing in your veins, your heart beating against your chest, the neurons in your brain connecting, the feeling of a billion cells joining and dividing? Maybe it's the other way around. To be able to see, touch, smell, hear, taste, feel.
Feel.
I don't remember what it's like to feel.
What are feelings? Is it when your nerve endings suddenly realize that you scraped your knee, and suddenly it's screaming at your brain that you are in pain? Or is it when you feel this rush of dopamine or oxytocin and you think Wow these chemicals and hormones in my brain are giving me emotions, hello, world I am a human being with emotions?
I remember when I was fourteen I began to learn how chemicals in our brain were released. Dopamine made us feel happy. Oxytocin made us feel love. In a way, I was appalled. Was what I was feeling a lie? Were every moment I looked at my family and felt this happiness and love just chemicals? Then I realized maybe it didn't matter. We were what we were because we are human.
What is love? Is love a strong emotion that surpasses all? Is it a rush of oxytocin and dopamine combined? I learned that is a feeling that makes us so impulsive and so dangerous. It makes us so powerful yet so vulnerable. Love makes us strong and weak. It keeps us controlled but oh so reckless. It makes us want and desire all of them and nothing else. It is a craving that sustains us and consumes us. It makes us sane and insane. It is like water, having the capacity to be destructive and revive. It is all a man in the desert thinks of. We say we love this or that or him and her. But do we really mean it?
Love.
Love is not just a feeling.
To feel again. I wish I could just feel my son's soft cheek, or my little girl's tiny hands. I wish I could just feel every black strand of hair on my wife's head.
I wish.
In between.
To be in between is to see and hear without being seen and without being heard. It is to wish to feel and not be able to feel or be felt. It is wishing to taste freedom and happiness. It is smelling hope and fear.
In between is here yet there. It is in front and also behind.
I am in between. I am everywhere and nowhere. I am everything and nothing. I am someone and no one. I am all and none. I was and am. I'm here, yet there. I'm in front, yet behind. I am close, but still very far away.
I am the opening of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
I am a personified oxymoron.
An oxymoron who suddenly begins to understand life.
Life is just a seed in the ground until it blossoms into a flower, and it's beautiful and tragic and painful and magical. You realize that life isn't the flower; you are. Then it's raining, pouring, and all you want to do is get back in the ground, where it was dark and warm and safe. Then some kid plucks you from your home and puts you in her hair, and suddenly, you're all tangled up and you don't want to be in the situation you are in right now. You forget the ground. All you want to do is be where you were. Then you're in a cold white, ceramic vase, being looked at and admired. You stay there for eternity and appreciate your change of scenery everyday. You see that you aren't the only thing that has a life.
This.
This is what gives life, what brings life.
This is life.
Life is how we exist.
But existing is not the same as living.
What is to have a good life? Is it to be wealthy until you're bathing in liquid gold? Is it to drink into hysteria? Is it being the most popular or the most successful?
I can tell you that no. I am the king of Illéa. I have riches, I have wine, I am known in nearly every crook of the Earth. And I can admit that I did a pretty good job with this country.
But is that what defines my life? Is that what makes my life good?
I lived my life with a loving family. A family who joked, ate altogether at the dinner table, played music and sang, and laughed. My cousins, my friends all made me feel this companionship, like I was part of a team. I met Tess in an ordeal that would have done everything it could have to keep her away from me. Tess, my wife, who made me laugh and smile and feel. What I felt is something I only feel with her. She gave me children, two beautiful children whom I can't love enough.
I had a good life because of these people.
I could have been a poor man, living off the streets and fighting the elements. If I still had these people, I wouldn't have cared. No, I wouldn't have cared at all. King or beggar, these beings would make my life more precious than any diamond.
I have lived a good life as a good son, brother, friend, boyfriend, husband, father. I have spent my entire life trying to make people happy, and the outcomes were the best, because seeing their happiness made me feel my own.
I have lived a good life.
But in between does not last forever.
I have two choices: to go before in between, or to go after.
I am holding on to a rope, and it burns in my hands. I want to let go. I want to see the light again, the clouds, the happiness, the face of God. But I can't let go of the other end of the rope, the one that connects me to my loves. They are holding the rope.
Then I realize they are the rope.
They wouldn't let go and let me fade into oblivion. I am holding onto them, and they are fraying. They are breaking because of me. I am a heavy burden. I should let go. If I fall, the rope will no longer be strained. If I let go, they won't be broken.
But that is a lie. If I let go of the rope, it will lose its purpose. It will lie in waste, doing nothing, lying there not as rope but as braided string.
But it would just be so easy...
No.
I can't do this to them.
So I am in between, still wondering whether or not I am flying or falling. Wondering whether I am dying or living. Wondering if this is Heaven or Hell.
I am past and present.
I am everywhere and nowhere.
But I have to pick somewhere.
I have to be somewhere.
And so I choose.
But what does Matthew choose? To live or to die? To breathe or to cease?
Writing this was fun :)
So how are you guys?! Haven't seen you in months. Sorry for the lack of updates. Inspiration hits at odd times (meaning, yes, it is totally 2:12 in the morning). If you're curious about me...well, let's just say I'm done with shiterature class. I sit at home reading or writing songs or playing piano, violin, or guitar. The fingertips on my left hand have calluses, and I agree with America, it's weird and I would not like Maxon to see these.
Also, my tumblr is eadlynschreaveofillea or ninjamusician25. The first is my Selection blog and I upload groovy stuff. You can also hear some songs that I wrote. My personal blog is just a bunch of random stuff so yeah. If you want a follow back on tumblr, all you have to do is ask or send me fan mail :)
QOTD: Name one (or multiple!) quirks about yourself.
Answer to previous QOTD: My most recent obsession is the Regina Spektor radio on Pandora. Her lyrics are so weird, but her voice is so interesting and the piano is beautiful. So yeah :)
I really would love to answer to reviews, but I am so tired. I watched Lucy and Boyhood today, and honestly, two rated R movies in one day slays :P
AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIEWING! I can't believe this is at 660. I'd really love it if this could be maybe at 700 by the time I finish? You guys are the best, though, really. Tell me anything in the reviews because I honestly love you guys. :)
Love ya!- AcademicGirl
