Hampshire

When I found you, there was nothing to hold onto.
You left me adrift.

The stars always look bleak, cold, and remote, but they were even more removed than usual the night I went out to the boonies, out to the kind of place that gives Tennessee its reputation for hicks and backwoods hillbillies. We rode out in awkward half-silence, broken only by repeated stabs at conversation and subsequent verbal fire.

I wasn't supposed to be there, really. It wasn't my place. But morality is a funny thing, and it leads us to do things for our better judgment, even if the actions are committed in spite of that same judgment.

I have rarely heard such acidity from a single tongue. I sat in the back seat and marveled at such spite, such open malice, jealousy, and insecurity. I wondered why I was there, why I had come, if I wouldn't have been better off staying downtown--an action ironic in and of itself. I had left my previous companion, with whom things were awkward enough, in order to spend time with you and your own companion, and that was ten times worse.

But more than wondering why I was there, I wondered why you were. I wondered what had brought the two of you together and what kept you here, despite the unhappiness I could see blooming all around the two of you.

She didn't even notice the glorious and flaming sunset, half hidden behind heavy grey banks of clouds and framed by the famous rolling hills of Tennessee. The weighty clouds were a fitting portent of the storm that was to come.

An hour on that dark, wooded road, one that was so familiar yet strange to me. I could hear echoes of Preston somewhere beyond the oaks and maples, in the patter of deer hooves and peep of frogs. I pressed close to the window to see the stars, my stars, the most remote, fantastic, and somehow real things to me. The dancing, pregnant moon flashed in and out of sight, lost among tree branches and a heavenly blanket of clouds. I wished for rain.

And then we were there, outside a high school that bore a strong resemblance to Preston Plains, the school I'll forever consider my true middle school. I looked up and breathed deep, finally free from the fumes of suburbia, that false freshness that has never suited me. It wasn't the summer air tinged with swamp and peat and woodsmoke that I pined for, but it was summer air nonetheless. I could hear summer frogs and crickets and owls, and that was enough for me.

The dance of discomfort began. I felt a heavy, pressing need not to crowd you or her, especially not you and her, so I drifted. You bounced back and forth, a pendulum caught between a rock and a very hard place. I waved your apologies off, since I felt more than a slight guilt for being there in the first place. You hemmed and hawed and made excuses, and I wondered who you were trying to cover up for--you or her. I wasn't going to ask.

The quiet summer air was a salve to me. I had felt locked up for so long. The slight illicitness of being here, so far away from home, gave me a thrill. I felt like we could have kept going, damn the awkward, until we were out of state, out of sight, out of obligations and stress and suburbia, and that awful thrill of wanderlust overtook me.

It was bittersweet. The two of you lying there made me miss what I lacked, even if what you had looked troubled and poisoned from my outside perspective. I thought of my own lost partner, what it might have been like if he had accompanied me the way I had planned. I missed him then, with that aching loss that can't ever be healed as quickly or completely as you wish it would. The fact that it would have been a year and one month that night didn't help. I paced with my eyes cast heavenward, asking questions that I still can't answer of a god who doesn't seem to like overt responses.

We frittered away an hour there, spaced out in the baseball field of the teamless school, the decrepit and forlorn concessions stand, the dark ribbon of road, and the tiny, orange-lit park adjacent to the school. I spent my time walking, stargazing, swinging, sitting, and musing, always musing. Ribbons of steely gray streaked the sky and blotted out the stars. I didn't miss the irony of the fact that we had picked a cloudy night to stargaze.

The ride back was quiet and tired. I came close to the window again as we drove on Miller Road's doppelganger towards the shell of a home I lived in, looking for the stars, always the stars, sometimes the only thing I recognize.

Break

Busted knee, broken sigh, and it's amazing that I'm here again.

They teach you about plasticity of the brain in psychology. It's the brain's way of adapting for something that goes missing. A blind person's brain still has that blank space where sight should be, but the longer it goes unfilled, the more the areas around it begin to filter in, stealing the grey matter to do their own jobs even better. They can hear better, distinguish voices in the way a sighted person never could, and detect even the faintest touch on their body. They are blind, yes, but the body overcompensates in other areas to account for this misfortune. It bounces back.

What I'm interested in is the plasticity of the human spirit.

You've all experienced it. One moment you're happy, spirited, content with where you are and what's going on around you. You're in control, or if you're not, you're comfortable with whoever's in charge. Life is good at best, bearable at worst.

But the next second, it's gone, you're gone, you're falling. How could things ever have been better? How could things ever have been the way they used to, how could you ever have been happy with who you were and what was going on?

How were you okay?

Think of the little boy with a heaping ice cream cone. He's gloriously happy with his lot, burying his face in the sweet delight of summer. And then, with a sick sliding motion, the cone is gone, on the ground, lost to dirt and ants and hot sidewalk. His face crumples, and he sobs. The loss of that ice cream cone, something small and unimportant to others, is so massive to him that it's nearly apocalyptic.

But not 2 minutes later, he has another cone in hand, bought by a consoling parent or an exasperated older sibling, and life is good again. The old hurt is mostly forgotten, yet the tears haven't even dried on his face.

That feeling, the awful crashing, collapsing feeling of things falling apart, is unmistakable. It twists your gut and contorts your face while your heart seems to burst, and it is misery. I felt it the June evening my parents announced their divorce. I felt it the night my family pulled into a motel the morning before we would leave Preston. I felt it 10 months ago on a cold winter night not unlike those outside right now. And at the time, I was sure that things could never go back. I was sure that I'd have to stay this miserable, at least for the foreseeable future, because there was no way that this would ever be okay. There was no way I'd ever be able to escape from under the shadow such momentous moments cast on my life. It is dramatic, but in times of stress, we all turn to drama.

I was wrong.

I moved on, grew up, learned lessons, fought through. I discovered strength I didn't knew I had and friends I never would have found if not for my troubles. I found empathy. I found forgiveness. I found appreciation for things I had overlooked in the past: a hug from a friend, a good book to escape in, a walk in the park. I redefined my faith, stretching it to fit my new demands, and tested my God. I broke. I healed. I am still healing today, and will be for as long as I live.

The trick, however, is to push forward without disregarding the past. Where do our lessons come from if not our personal history? The small boy with the ice cream cone soon forgets his loss, but the new cone could still topple if he isn't careful. But even more important is maintaining hope and optimism and not falling to cynicism and harshness. It is easier to be hurt when hoping, but it is easier to love, too.

I'm not here to preach; that's my last intention. I'm searching for answers and ways to grow, like many of us are. And this is just what I have learned so far: The fall is shattering, but rebuilding is always possible.