Longing to Exhale

With tears streaming, I hesitantly packed everything I had in the nearest bag. All the worries and anxieties, the doubts, and unbeliefs, the joy and pain, the love and grief, and traumas and fears, the depression and wonder and hope. I tossed them all in and prayed for the best. With my heart in a sack slung over my shoulder I begrudgingly made my journey. I hoped someone had been listening as I called out, begging and pleading, that I wouldn’t be turned away but welcomed with anything other than pity. I’d rather be rejected and turned away than to be accepted because of pity. I didn’t need anyone's heart to go out for me; my heart was already gone, or at least most of it was. What was left of it sat restive in the bag on back beating boisterously like an animal trying to escape its cage.

 That’s how I’d always felt, like I was trying to escape a cage I’d been thrown into. A cage full of demons I’d been fighting for years with no luck and no one to help. Or maybe that wasn’t quite true. Maybe there was someone on the other side of those silver bars waiting with a key. Waiting for me to ask them to unlock the doors and let me breathe again, but the pride in my chest kept my lips sealed shut. I couldn’t possibly ask someone to take on that task, not when I knew what it was like. I’d held the weight of those iron keys in my own hands one too many times attempting to liberate the very people that held me captive. So I sat there, like an animal in a cage with my wounds on display for an audience, unable to speak. I stood there silently as they clapped while I took blow after blow. Still I couldn’t ask the one holding the keys for help. How could I when I was scared of being free. Don’t get me wrong, I hated the cage I’d been constrained to with every fiber of my being, but when you’ve been incarcerated for ages, the inside of those steel bars becomes home. It becomes routine, a sort of crutch, and the outside world becomes uncertain and unstable. In that cage, I knew what to expect day by day. I knew I’d be met with pain and torment. Outside, I didn’t know what to expect, I didn’t know what I’d be confronted with and it terrified me. But lately I’d been feeling like it was time for exposure therapy, it was time for me to breathe again. I had been holding my breath for far too long and I didn’t know how much longer I could continue on that way. And I knew I couldn’t overcome what I refused to confront.

So with weak knees and a heart that was barely beating, I walked up to the door and decided I was ready to breathe again. I decided I was ready to ask the person on the other side for help. I raised my fist and knocked on the old oak door. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe pity once they saw what I carried inside of my bag or anger for bringing my ratty clothes and bloodied heart to their front step, but I was met with neither. The door opened and we locked eyes. Bright eyes met my glistening gaze and I was swept up into warm arms before I had a chance to present the reason for my sudden appearance. I was ushered into the home that smelt like autumn and love. I shifted my weight from foot to foot as my eyes caught the decades worth of endearment that lined the brown walls. My eyes stung as I wondered if I’d ever get the privilege of experiencing anything like what I was seeing in those pictures. 

I was ushered to a couch and suddenly my words were caught in my throat. I contemplated remaining silent. “I just came by to pay you a visit”, I’d say. I’d carry my bag and its contents back home and dump them in the corner of my cluttered room. I’d cover them back up and pretend they weren’t there. Everything would go back to normal, to familiarity. But as coffee brewed and our knees bumped, my eyes welled up. The dam that I’d spent years building suddenly had given away and I didn’t know how I felt about it. Soft circles were rubbed on my back as I choked out the words I’d been dying to speak aloud. The words I’d only whispered to myself in the dead of night were suddenly floating around the air, and it felt good. It felt like the calm after last night's rain, like a slow smile or long hug, like stepping out of the house at midnight to see the moon grinning down at you. It felt like the first exhale after being underwater, like I was finally breathing again.

With shaky hands I unloaded my bag on the coffee table. I felt shy under the gaze of the god send next to me. Once finished, I sat back with a deep sigh and waited for a response or reaction. I waited for a sign of regret, resentment, or repulsion . Once more, where I expected blazing flames, I was met with a gentle rain. A rain so soft and delicate that fell down and kissed all the places I’d been previously burned.

 Hand in hand, we sorted through the chaos on the table before us. Together we tossed out the things that once diverted me from the troubles of my life. It was decided that, from there on out I would face things head on, no more distractions. We threw away all the things that plagued me at night or no longer served a purpose. All of my wounds were carefully tended to by the gentle hands that held mine. There were no reservations about the things that I’d laid bare on the table, only love and a devotion to help where needed. It was beyond admirable. When I was scared to dive into the deep end, my hand was held and I was told that everything would be fine. And together, we jumped. We dived  head first into my problems and traumas and swam with everything we had in us until the waves were no longer besting us. At last, I glanced down into my hands at the heart that I now held as it beat steadily. It looked different than before. Newer, softer, loved at last. A little used and slightly torn, covered in bandages, but still loved nonetheless. With delicate fingers, we placed it back where it should’ve been all along, where it should have never left. 

But sometimes that’s the way things go. Sometimes things are placed where they shouldn’t be, and they get bruised, broken, and occasionally stepped on. Sometimes valuable things are misplaced or ruined; they suffer wear and tear and sometimes irrefutable damages. Sometimes things don’t go how they should and everything gets chaotic and jumbled up. There’s confusion everywhere and everything is bleak and dark. The moon is hiding and there are no stars in sight. Sometimes the nights are cold and painfully long, but then morning eventually comes. Wrapped in a cardigan and a sunshine grin. The rain finally settles and the stars come out again to kiss you goodnight. The mess gets sorted out and the cage gets opened. You're greeted by kind eyes and love that knows no bounds. You exhale and pick up pieces of what used to be. You learn how to breathe again