I don’t think it was depression. It was just
the general realization that I was doing something terribly important terribly
wrong. And that I was feeling terribly right doing it that way.
You see, it was a matter of
freedom. I had it, and I didn’t. But even when I truly did, I felt as if I was
wasting it. The others… they took advantage of it to the most. They were
living. They were dancing, and I was feeling the gap gaping inside my chest
pulling me back and building a wall between us. I was watching them when they
couldn’t see me, and I envied them, for they were filling the gaps that I believed
gaped within anyone’s heart with cheap alcohol and fooling their bodies and the
chemistry controlling them into believing they were happy. I don’t know if they
were – they might have been – but in my heart there was a storm and for me
their shouts above the sounds of the music were cries for help neither of them
heard.
And yet they were living. I
looked down and on my palms I saw the roots of my life crossing the pink skin
of my hands. Those hands held it all – my life, my soul, my abyss and my salvation;
they held my freedom and my slavery. I put my hands up to my ears and listened.
I listened to what my hands had to say about my life, but I forgot to close my
eyes, which saw them happy with liquor. And I envied them again, and I could
hear only their music but not my hands, and I was lost once more.
My eyes wanted to follow them
and were locked on the key to their happiness. It looked easy and yet utterly
impossible. The way their bodies move and the game of light and shadows that
fell on their skin and hair, the way they thrust their own hands against each
other and connected in the wild rhythm was like a prism to me, capturing me,
mesmerizing me, horrifying me. My eyes pulled me forward, but my body stayed
sitting still. My hands weren’t connecting with anybody’s and never had. The silver
lines glistened lonely in the darkness of the colorful lights and asked for a
companion. And I reached forward to hold on to one, but my body still stood
sitting.
I grew angry with myself and my
silly body. The answer was right there in front of me; the answer was sold on shelves
in glass bottles; the answer was pounding in between the sweat and breath of
the dance floor; the answer was in the air they breathed. The gap felt enormous
inside my chest and I wanted to fill it. But my body didn’t respond.
I closed my eyes and frustrated lifted
hands to ears once more. And the sound of the life nectar running through my
roots overwhelmed me. No other liquor was to be needed. They, the roots from my
past leading me to my future, were louder than anything shouting in my ears Don’t!
And I didn’t. I just sat there
and watched them move. And they saw me sitting and smirked disgusted at my
empty of sweat face and the quiet innocence of my lips. And they grasped each
other’s hands but didn’t connect, they had lost their connection. And again I wondered
if they were happy that way.
I sat quietly and wondered if I was
doing it wrong that thing, you know, living. And if I was using my freedom to
the most and if I wouldn’t regret it in fifty years. And I knew that when we
went back they would tell me the epic stories of happy drunkenness and funny deliriousness
and that then again I would wonder the same thing. If I was doing it wrong that
thing, living.
Thinking of that I got up and
backed away. I went out to celebrate the cool night air and mesmerize my silly
eyes with the sight of the stars. I didn’t hear their music, but they didn’t
hear mine. And my hands glistened with a strange light. I breathed in and let
the scent of the world fill my lungs, and my lungs were so close to my heart,
and the gap started filling, and my hands let go of the abyss for the night and
let me dance with the sound of billions of hearts pounding along with mine.
The question of what was right and
wrong, I knew, was to arise many times again, but that night it didn’t matter. That
night I was crazy; that night I was drunk with life and delirious with freedom;
that night I was part of everything and everything was part of me; that night I
was magic, and the world was wonderful. I sang, and I danced, and I laughed
until I was out of breath and beyond. And when I was done, there was not a
question left. If I was doing it wrong, I still wouldn’t change it. My happiness
was harder to find, as it wasn’t sold in bottles, but that night I had it in
the palms of my hands.
