Melody of a Fallen Tree by Windsor For The Derby
What is it that made us believe in permanence? Over and over again I’ve heard that nothing lasts forever. Each time the season changes, each morning when I wake up, there is always this feeling of surprise that it came, that it came at all. I am getting that feeling in the pit of my stomach again, like every fall. As I slowly watch the sunlight fade to duller hues, days growing shorter, and leaves tumbling to the brown grass. There is always the same feeling in me, as if I never believed it would truly come again.
An urgency lives in each of us. An urgency to get past this hurdle, this feeling this need. There is an urgency in us to find that place of perfect happiness. Truly I know that it will always be brief and fleeting. I know that each feeling, each emotion, each day and motion lasts only a glimpse, only a brief breath of time.
Life is something like a funnel. When I was young, everything seemed so large, so full of life and opportunity. There were innumerable choices that could lead to no possible wrong end in my mind. There were school days, summer days, play days, but I don’t know if there was more than that in my mind. And slowly I am spiraling through this funnel that is growing smaller, thinner and more confined. For the first time in a while, I want to just run free. I want to just do whatever for a while. Just get by. There was a time when I thought there would be a plan. There was a time when I believed that there was a path. For now, I think there is nothing but right now. There is the sunlight, the daytime and the night. Even that will not last forever.
Maybe you are unwilling to admit what I am willing to say. It’s terrifying just to live sometimes. It’s exhausting more often. And there is this constant wandering, this meandering until things improve, until we know. Well I don’t think we will really ever know. An irony in itself to say you can’t know anything for sure, but I think the answer you are seeking always comes eventually. To fight just to fight, to throw your arms up in disbelief. Did you really think this day wouldn’t come? This day will always be coming. The day where things don’t work out as you planned. The day you lose something you thought you never would. And you can beg all you want, you can beat you chest, you can ache in pain. Or you can just pack your clothes in a bag and move to a different place. A place where you are not confined by who you were or what you had done, but where your only confine is what you make in your mind. Truly that’s what it is now. Fear, anger, disbelief. Where do you think they come from?
Where does this training come from? There are everyday emotions and actions that people take that I can rarely fathom. Someone told me recently that anger wasn’t a primary emotion. It’s an aftermath of something else, hurt, pain, disappointment that all stem from these plans we make. So what should I primarily feel? I should feel grateful. Grateful that there was ever a chance to do these things at all. What is the point in disappointment? What does it change? There is this habit in us to hold onto things that don’t last. A habit that there is no sense in breaking. I will hold onto these things, but when the time comes for them to go, to be over, can I just let go.
Sometimes I exhaust myself with the same few subjects. The purpose, the life, the path. There are answers people find comfort in. There are answers I supply, but don’t take heed to myself. There is always something bigger than what is immediate. I think that’s why it feels to hard to me to deal with the here and now. It’s that large lip of the funnel I always go back to, that I cling to. That time where it was easy to believe in anything and see things in a positive way. And I feel anguish for things gone so far away. For people that have been missing for years now. For places that only live in my memory anymore. I will always miss those places.
Things will always change and we will always have to adapt. The crippling pain of losing a loved one, the annoyance of having to start over, the envy of others who seem to not have to do the same: it will always be there. The difference is what you do with those broken moments, those missing people, the fallen tree. There’s a stump in our yard from where lightning stuck a tree. It’s all that’s left. And sometimes we feel like the stump, sometimes we feel like the trunk of the tree too. We feel expendable even to those that claim to love us.
I don’t want to be angry about things that don’t work out. I don’t want to be scared of change. I don’t want to be afraid to walk out one door in case another doesn’t open. I don’t things will get easier. I don’t think saying goodbye will ever be desirable, but nothing lasts forever. I’m thankful for that.
The possibilities in life are endless and although that’s scary, there’s hope somewhere in there too.
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