It started, perhaps, in my twelfth year of life...when I came to receive instruction at the establishment the townspeople termed "The Middle School". No longer was I to take all of my studies in one classroom, but in several of them within a larger building. Metal compartments lined the halls and shiny padlocks hung from each, and I was told that I would come to store my belongings in one of them. In my days there, we were given three minutes to get from room-A to room-B. Three minutes, my friends, wasn't much during the lost days of post New-Kids-on-the-Block-cool. I am sure that time has accrued interest in the many days since, and perhaps three minutes is now closer to three minutes and fourteen seconds...but then, three minutes was only three minutes.
What if I needed the bathroom?—a drink from the bubbler?—another Mountain Dew from the pop machine?—what then!? No way would three minutes ever be enough. Three minutes and fourteen seconds? See, that probably would have been fine...kids have it easier these days. Thus, I carried every single textbook, notebook, workbook, binder, and writing utensil I owned from class to class. They allowed the use of backpacks then, before the world got crazy and teachers had to be suspicious of the types of things twelve-year-old children were capable of bringing to Social Studies. I went through a backpack every three months. The straps kept shredding from their sockets. This was curious on so many levels, so many. But, mainly because craftsmanship was better in my day, and particularly in things pertaining to children. Case in point: Linkin' Logs.
A young lass of fifteen was I when I stepped from the bus the first morning of high school. This new place was bigger. The lockers were scarcer and you had to have a locker-mate. Backpacks were forbidden. It was hell, man...hell. The saving grace was the extra two minutes of time they gave us between classes. I could surely get another Mountain Dew in five minutes ...and by the time I was fifteen, five minutes had actually accrued to be around to five minutes and three seconds. The bells rang accordingly.
But—!
A Mountain Dew AND to the locker for books? In five minutes and three seconds? How could the lords of scheduling find this adequate? Needless to say, I carried no less than three textbooks, notebooks, binders, and accompanying utensils at any given time. Who knew when the urge for that Dew would hit, after all, and how frequently at that. My shoulders no longer bore tread mark from the arms of an impregnated backpack, but they rolled forward in defeat and my lower back began to ache deliciously as I milked the ailment for all it was worth at home for the securing of a toppling supply of Mountain Dew. "No, Mom...the Ibuprofen barely takes the bite off...yes, I know it's prescription strength...what would help me feel better, you ask?" The devil got into me often in those days, and you can see where it was heading.
By the time I graduated, my posture was so lousy you'd think I had a Neanderthal as a not-so-distant relation. During college, I was constantly carrying books, groceries, and cubes of Mountain Dew over nearly a mile's distance, this being the closest parking spot that we could get. As parents grimace, chiropractors rub their hands together excitedly, and a back problem is diagnosed. But now, it had become a way of life. It is the marriage of efficiency and laziness that so many young people in my generation embraced in the early aughts—that's right, we're in the "aughts" now, did you know that?...they voted it the term to use as the "nineties" grew to a close, which everybody promptly ignored.
I can't quite reconcile myself to multiple trips when one back-breaking round'll get the job done. I can't quite allow myself to unlock the house unless I have to balance the gallon of milk on uplifted knee and the bag of potatoes between my hip and the door jam. I can't quite allow myself to use a shopping cart when all I'll be getting is a loaf of bread, a bag of apples, a jar of dry roasted peanuts, 5 cans of soup, an envelope of freshly ground coffee, a canister of instant tea, a box of Fiber One cereal, and 6 cups of yogurt. I know how much weight I can hold in each arm pit, each elbow crook, and the narrow of the space between my ring finger and pinkie. This knowledge serves no purpose if not to forgive me unneeded exercise. And, knowledge always serves a purpose...you know, like that "aught" thing I wrote of earlier.
The mind is a scary place. We exist in a corridor, dimly lit, and wander aimlessly down the long hall of locked doors—unable to resist trying every knob. We have a desire to know everything there is to know...but such knowledge would be our end. We're simply not meant to just know.
As I walk through life, a lock sounds audibly, and I run down the line searching for what I've paid in experience to learn. I don't always like what I find on the other side when I find that door, but there is a certain comfort in knowing that it will never be locked to me again.
We all exist in this way, though many of you probably shrink from my brand of metaphorical philosophizing. I call it metaphorisizing. Words are fluff to me unless they paint a picture for me to study as a visual aid.
I've talked about the empty corridors of my dreams before. It refers to those restless nights when I want answers so badly that I can taste them, almost feel them against my outstretched fingertips. I'm not content enough to hang out in one of the rooms I've managed to unlock, to be happy with what I have.
But, when a person wanders in that emptiness for long enough, they find an evil brand of answer. One of my mother's sayings through her ordeal with cancer is, "I'm looking for answers where there are none." My version through my own travails goes, "In the absence of answers, one makes them up." Your most desperate thoughts emerge there in that solitary place, unabated by concerns of your loved ones' reaction. Eventually, the echoing ripples resonate like the voice of reason and you have a sick little falsity to illuminate your days.
In a concert of these, I heard a door creak open late last week. I was on my back, staring up from the basement of existence, and didn't believe it at first, couldn't. There is a strength in needing. I put a voice to a dark thought, and all at once, it became diseased and began to die. Rejection may thunder, but it does not reign. I spent far too many nights convinced that a fire had gone out in my soul, but it burns still.
