do you know the feeling? You’re traveling along just fine…enjoying yourself…having a snack…and then the lights flicker, the cabin pressure drops, and the world is not what it once was. It’s a deep plunge. For a train, an inch makes all the difference between Chicago and Austin. It doesn’t take much to derail me. The men’s section does it. When I hear myself laugh like he used to. Licorice does it.
I never know when it’s going to happen…sometimes it’s the song on the radio, or a phrase that the expo at Red Robin says to me in passing. I keep my secrets. *shrugs* no, that’s not true. I don’t have secrets. I would tell you anything that you wanted to know about me, in detail probably, and with visuals. But I have nothing new to say. I have nothing worth saying about this. So when such a derailment occurs, I quietly and meekly collect myself- the parts of me that melted onto the floor, the bits of me that I have to recapture from the air, and the chunks that thud and echo on the ground. No one hears it but me.
I know the feeling. Tonight, my derailment came from a few short sentences. They weren’t even directed at me. But as my mind collected them I could feel myself falling away. It was like carrying an enormous amount of small parcels and balancing them just right. In each tidy package I carried a fragile treasure- my smile, confidence, self-respect, ambition….and as these sentences trickled into my head, I started to lose my balance, and one by one I could feel the packages slide onto the ground. Now, keep smiling, this is no major event. Tomorrow I will gather these packages again…and continue to balance and build. I just don’t know how to avoid licorice. *grimace* that’s a lie too. Avoiding licorice is moderately easy…
Derailment can only be erradicated by giving up hope…and that is something that I cannot do. I don’t know how. So bring on the licorice coupled with icy tracks! Send me 100 love songs wrapped in turbulance…and I will gather myself again and again until the conclusion of this journey. =)
xoxox
elle

Tags: No Comments