I wish I could pinpoint the moment when life started feeling like a rickety, cyclical machine taking me along for the ride — I wish I could pinpoint it so I could throttle it with my bare hands, squashing it down until adulthood was a thing of fiction and childhood remained my present and my future.
It feels cruel that I got to experience the simple pleasures of the night with an almost sickening delight.
When I was younger, the evenings meant a time for travel — each book opened was uncharted territory.
“Please just one more! One more!” I would plead alongside my siblings. When my parents gave in, one of us would pull out another book we had stashed behind the pillows. Just in case…
Now, I stare at the empty bookshelves in the living room; a wordless tomb with a beautifully embossed cover, a large vase with wilting flowers and an empty wooden box barely filling the space of what once was.
As I wander down the long hall, I pass my parents room, a place that used to be a vessel for space launches, jungle expeditions and belly-aching laughter. Some nights, when an almost tangible nostalgia ebbs through my house, I attempt to mimic memories.
I grab an old book, flip through its pages and try to lose myself in its familiar simplicity. But my forced excitement gets tangled in the words, now meaningless and pathetic. I stare at my faded reflection in the mirror as my toothbrush creates green suds over my teeth and I can almost swear I see my twin sister next to me, rocking her hips side to side for our nightly bathroom dance number when we’d forget about brushing our teeth, laughing and screaming until our mom came in to tell us it was time to hurry into bed.
Now, no one comes to tell me when I should sleep. No one walks me up the steep steps and fluffs up my pillow. No one kisses me on the forehead and whispers, “Sweet dreams.”
Now, with myself as my own company, I take the steep steps two at a time and punch my pillow soft. Now, I smother my bed sheets over my head and wait impatiently for nothingness to stay for a few short hours.
I am still home but it feels far from it. The space isn’t yet devoid of voices but it feels so empty. Sound no longer dances around the house, no longer warms the space like the aromas of sweet tomato and sharp parmesan. When I walk through the door, I’m no longer greeted by bowls of pasta at the dinner table.
Now, I arrive home at obscure hours, passing the dining room table, a piece of furniture where seats lie vacant.
In this new life, there is no time for clasping hands for grace, going for second helpings or sharing snippets of harmless drama from recess.
Tonight, I enter a household that’s already asleep. I kick off my mud-caked shoes and head toward the counter where a small pot of cold leftovers awaits me. I eat straight from the dish, barely registering what passes my lips before my nightly routine commences.
Perhaps I should take the wise words of ‘living in the present’ with more than just a grain of salt — but I can’t help but cling to the memories, slowly fading, of what I once had.
Tonight, I’m afraid that every day of my future will consist of me hammering away at the rock of my life, constantly trying to carve out my past.
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