Six billion, seven hundred and ninety eight million, nine hundred thousand people

As of today, the estimated population of the world is 6,798,900,000 people. Just looking at the number amazes me, and I find myself wondering how many people in the world are doing the exact same thing I’m doing right now. I find myself wondering how many people out there are thinking about the same things as me.

How many of them are worried about someone?

How many of them are fighting temptations beyond their control?

How many of them are thinking about doing something they know they shouldn’t do?

How many of them are weighing the power of a lie against the power of the truth?

How many are feeling let down by someone?

How many are feeling like they let someone down?

How many of them just want to punch something, even though they know it won’t make anything better?

How many of them are excited about future possibilities?

How many of them want something, or someone, that they know is off limits?

How many of them are fighting with their pride?

How many of them are on the verge of laughter, and on the verge of tears, simultaneously?

How many of them are afraid, and sad, and happy, and excited, and apprehensive, and embarrassed, and tempted, and free, and ready all at once?

Today, I am a seesaw of emotion, my balance keeps shifting, from one side to the other, and then back again. I can’t seem to find my center. How many other people out there are going through the same things as I am at this moment. Is it possible that someone else is experiencing this sense of imbalance in the same way that I am at this instant?

There are approximately six billion, seven hundred and ninety eight million, nine hundred thousand people in the world, could I really be the only one?

It's raining

It's raining and I'm smiling. I've missed the rain.

Last night, lying awake in bed, I heard a familiar sound and found myself slipping out from the warmth of my bed and standing at the window. The world was covered in a layer of wet. The rain was falling, drops of water were racing down my window pane. I left the curtains open and slipped back into bed and just listened. It's a hauntingly beautiful sound.

It's mid-January and Montreal is covered in puddles. The outdoor rinks are ruined, and the piles of snow are shrinking, and winter is losing its picturesque beauty, but I'm still smiling. I stand outside and look up and let the rain wash over me, rinsing me clean.

Reminiscing

I miss the days when Pluto was still considered a planet.

The world seemed to make more sense then.

The Photograph

It starts like this, I’m walking down a deserted hallway. There is little noise aside from the creeks and sounds of the building itself. The smell of food cooked hours before lingers in the air. What little light there is streams through a dust covered window at the far end of the hall. You can see the dust dancing in the beams of light. You’d think these beams would add warmth to the darkness of this hallway, but instead they only serve to enhance its dinginess. I do not know exactly what it is I’m doing here or what I’m searching for, but I am certain that I will know it when I see it.

I try the door on my right and am not surprised to find it unlocked. Memory tells me it was rare to find it locked. The room beyond the door is much brighter then the hallway. I step into the room, blind, my eyes need a moment to adjust. This room does not fit inside this building. Everything is so neat and orderly, never a inch out of place. You could almost move the room out the building entirely, to someplace completely different, and no one would ever notice. It’s as though it were from a different time. From some time before this neighborhood became the wrong side of the tracks. When the streets were less obtrusive, when the grass still existed.

There’s a slight layering of dust on the furniture. Its strange to see, the apartment is usually immaculate. I run a finger along a shelf, rubbing it against my thumb, feeling the ever so slightly grainy dust between my finger tips. I run my hands along the books on the shelf. They cover the room, every table, shelf, and surface of any kind has books piled on them. I feel the gilded titles, smiling at the memories. I’d read everyone at least once. It was the one thing we shared, an intense love for the stories. These books are the reason I became a writer, I wanted to have my own words immortalized in paper like these books. I wanted to find that smell, the fresh paper scent of a book and now that the words that fill the pages were mine. But this isn’t the memory I’ve come for.

I know what I am looking for now. I have seen it here in this apartment many times before. I remember looking at it when I was a young girl, trying to find a piece of myself in it, trying to understand where I came from. It’s on the dresser where its always been. The young woman in the photo is smiling. She’s walking along the beach, toward the photographer, and the wind is blowing her hair into her face. Her hands run through her hair and her eyes, my eyes, look right into me, or more likely the person who was taking her photo. She looks happy, but a part me knows that it won’t last. None of my memories of her can be seen as happy. This picture is the only proof I have that she was ever happy. A part of me wishes I could talk to the person in this picture. There is so much I would ask, so much I want, and need, to know.

I pick up the photo, the silver frame is cool to the touch. It is the only photo in the apartment, it was always the only photo. I take one last look around. The movers will be here soon. They will pack this all up in dozens of identical cardboard boxes, and then they will have it put in storage in some locker amidst hundreds of lockers exactly the same. I can’t get rid of it, not just yet. It is some what comforting to me, to know that it will be there if ever I find a need for it. That in some storage locker somewhere the smell in this apartment will be preserved, in case I ever need to remember again.

Then I turn around and I leave for the last time, and for the first time, I don’t look back.

The things I can't say

Part of my Wilde Resolution that I mentioned an entry or two back is about giving expression to my feelings. I am the type of person who tends to internalize major emotions (just ask my Mother). I push it aside, let it lie in wait, until I’m overwhelmed and it all comes boiling to the surface at the same time. This is something I’m working on.

That being said, the words below have been building in me for a few weeks now, probably even longer then that. This is something I can’t say to this person, I wouldn’t feel comfortable, but it’s something I feel I need to get off my chest. It seems to me that’s one of the reasons I have this little blog here.

This is one of the more personal things I have shared here, and this is the only time I am ever going to ask that no comments be made on this post. I’m posting this is for me, because its something I need to let out.

--------------------------------------------------

There are so many things I want to say to you, to tell you. My heart is heavy with the things left unsaid, but that isn’t the kind of relationship we have. That’s never been the kind of relationship we’ve had. We don’t really talk about real issues. I wish I were brave enough to tell you these things in person.

If I’m going to be completely honest, a part of me has always been intimidated by you. It sounds silly I know, but on some level its true. I was never really sure of what to say to you, what to talk to you about. Most of the time, in the past couple of years especially, you seemed too distracted and overwhelmed to even hear me, but if there was one time where I really needed you to listen, even if its the only time you ever really hear me, it’s right now.

I can remember how I used to idolize you when I was a kid. I would brag about you to all my friends. You were one of my heros. I was so proud of you. I was proud of what you had accomplished. When I look at you now, and when I think of you now, I can’t seem to get that feeling back. You’re lost. The person I thought you were when I was a kid isn’t there anymore and this makes me sad.

I want to be able to look at you with pride again. I want to be able to see someone that can be a hero to the child in me once more. I want to see someone who can be a hero to the person I am now.

I know the world isn’t what it was when I was young. As you grow older, things change, everything becomes a little more complicated. I know what you’re going through right now is far from easy. The burden on your shoulders is not an easy one to be carrying. The issues at hand here are heavy and I don’t mean to diminish the struggle you have to endure, but I want you to know that I still believe in you. You are strong. You overcame obstacles and worked hard to achieve those accomplishments that made me idolize you when I was a kid, and now you need to use that strength and you need to work hard again.

In the end, what it comes down to is this; I’m not the one who needs a hero anymore your children need the hero. As hard as this is for you, it’s even harder for them. They can’t truly understand why this is happening. They need you. They need the hero now. The road ahead is daunting, and I think you have every right to be uncertain and apprehensive of what may lie ahead, but we are all here for you. You might be scared, but right now you need to brave. Your kids need you to do the right thing.

My heart hurts for you and for everyone else, but I still believe in the hero that you are, the person that lies in wait within you. Now you need to believe in it again. You need to step up and take action. I love you and I am confident that you will make it through this and come out an even stronger and better man than before.

Overwhelmed

It’s late, too late, but she has to write it all down before she forgets.

The words are passing through her mind so quickly, she can’t keep up.

They’re like images, coming into view, and then fading too quickly. There’s no time to commit them to memory.

She remembers a poem she once heard, but she can’t quite piece it together. It begins to blend with the rest of the words in her mind, twisting and turning until they start to form something else, something entirely of their own.

She writes, writes it all down before she loses it, but she doesn’t really understand what it is she is writing, only that she must write it down before it falls back into the dark recesses or her mind.

It’s almost like being upside down. The blood rushes to your head and you try to put the world in order, but it takes your mind longer because everything is reversed. This is what she must do with the words, try to put them back in order.

Order is the wrong word, so clean cut and proper. It does not belong here, but she sees it and therefore she writes it down. She much prefers Chaotic and Erratic, but those aren’t the words that are calling to her tonight.

Night, darkness, memory, imagine, creation, dream, wake, sleep, beautiful, destruction, denial, passion, instruction, believe, achieve, reunite, excite, caress, silence, laughter, tears, medication, love, hate, relations, up, down, left, right, wrong, serious, nonsense, calm, peace, night, darkness.

Some of it doesn’t even make sense, but she writes the words down in hope that with morning and the suns arrival she will experience the moment when it all falls into place, and a common union between the words and ideas will start to build into something stronger, something bigger.

Right now, she needs to let sleep take her, the words are still coming, faster and more numerous, but they will have to wait until tomorrow night, when her mind can start afresh.