The Cost of Living

              

The Cost of Living

                I watched her from a distance, my old friend, as she crossed the room with her long, flowing skirts swirling around her ankles.  She danced on her toes as she spun her arms in the air in a pretend pirouette, then tripped lightly over her feet.  I laughed as she laughed.  Her skirts were always swaying this way and that as she moved playfully along, never stopping.  She never stopped.  Her skirts just so characteristic of her personality, brightly colored with flowers and lace- a mirror of her soul.  She said they made her happy, and I never questioned it because I always thought- how lovely to always surround yourself with such genuine beauty and elegance.  She turned and looked at me over her shoulder before spinning again and then intentionally reached up above her towards the very top shelf of an old oak bookcase to take down a worn out shoe box I had never noticed before.  It was held together with yellowed tape, and the lid was slightly warped from the humidity, so that it popped open on one corner.  A string was tied around it like it was a gift, the bow done up neatly on top.  She stood there on her tip toes and gently brushed it with her fingers before pausing.  I saw her shoulders droop just slightly before she fully grasped it, then gingerly, but delicately, pulled it down into her arms. 

                It was then that I noticed- perhaps for the first time- the grey wisps in her unruly hair.  She stood there holding that worn shoebox not looking up. When she did turn back towards me, I could see her lips pursed resolutely together, but she did not look up and I could not meet her gaze.  I longed to see the story her eyes would tell, but she did not show me. 

                Quietly, I got up and slowly walked to her.  If she was aware of my presence she did not show it, so I reached out tenderly and my fingers barely brushed that worn out show box before she jerked it away from me clutching it tighter to her body. 

                But in that moment- that first slight touch- I felt an ice-cold almost electrical shock that filled me down to my inner being so fierce that I was uncomfortable with its presence.  I wanted to rip it from her arms and throw it away forever.  WHY would she keep such a horrible thing much less cradle it against her like a lover?! I demanded answers, but she was still quiet and just stood there without acknowledging anything from me. 

                “Please” I begged with my fists closed tight and struggling with my patience “what is this? I don’t understand.”

                “These are…” she paused before starting again “My memories. My past.  Who I am.”

                “How is that possible?” I gasped, shocked at the revelation.  I stared at her uncertain how to continue my head spinning faster than I could keep up with.  I had FELT what was in that box.  While it had not hurt me physically, I had felt its screaming, its strength, its intense depth that threatened to overtake my understanding of how I had perceived my own capabilities.  It wasn’t pain, but it hurt, and it threatened my peace- HER PEACE! I could feel myself opening to things I had never known existed and I did not like it. 

                “Why?...” I stuttered uncertain what to say next. 

                She sighed a long, deep sigh then gently stroked her hand across the lid delicately attempting to fit it back in place even as it stubbornly popped back out of position.  Her fingers pausing along the edges of the lid, leaving little dust trails as she moved them along. 

                “Doesn’t it… hurt?” I asked desperately trying to put words to what I had felt from the box.

                “Oh… Yes” she said softly.  “It does hurt.”

                “Then why?” I demanded again. 

                “Because it is too beautiful to let go.”

                “This isn’t beauty!” I could feel my temper rising.  I could feel anger that caught even me off guard.  My own response was confusing me, but I was so focused on what I had felt, that I did not consider pausing to reflect what it was doing to me.  “This” I said looking around at the room she’d built, gesturing with my hands “is beauty.”

                I pointed to the pink and red peonies in a vase in the window.  The white linen curtains blowing in the spring breeze. The pictures of songbirds on the walls, the coffee table she had painstakingly sanded and refinished and painted sage- her favorite color.  I knew her and everything about her was beautiful, but not this box.  Of everything in the room that she claimed was beautiful- I rejected the thought it might be that worn out shoe box in her arms. 

                “You misunderstand.” she replied gently.  “Everything in this room is more beautiful BECAUSE of this box.” She looked back down at it again with tenderness in her eyes.

                She clutched it close to her one more time like an old friend, then softly turned and reaching up to the top of that old oak bookcase, slid the box back up on top pushing it out of sight.  But I knew it was there now and now that I knew, I could not forget. 

                She turned towards me with a renewed endurance I had never been able to identify before and said-

                “A long time ago, I knew somebody like no one I’d never known, and I loved like I’d never loved.  He showed me a way to see I had never understood, because our connection together was so different.  I believed at the time we could overcome anything, and I was willing to go as far as I needed to prove that.  But there are some things you cannot overcome.  No matter how intensely you wish to.  It changes you.  It changed me.  But it forced me also to overcome the unbearable.  This loss was different.  It was final.  It was forever.  I could not fix it.  I could not make it better.  And there was nothing to prepare me to deal with a loss that took part of myself with it.  I lived with a void.  I was too wounded and broken to see for a long time though, that it’s not until you have experienced greater pain, greater sorrow, greater grief, that you can also experience greater beauty, greater love, greater peace if you allow it.  I have seen the deep pits of despair.  I sat alone in them in the dark for a long time, but I also see the sunrises in the mountains and the sea shells on the beach, I hear the laughter of a child in a way most will not because I know darkness and beauty must shine brighter to overcome the darkness.  I accept what happened and what I had to go through.  I do not have to like it, but I do have to accept it.  Despite the grief, I still choose to love knowing that one day that same obstacle will still be impossible to overcome and I will still be left alone again.  So, I try to take these little moments that may have been unremarkable and see them differently, but I know now that all those unremarkable moments then are what I cling to the most today.  I put them away neatly in that box, because they are precious to me though they still cause me pain even now.”

                Suddenly, I could see and put a name to the sad glimmer in her eyes that I had always attributed to just her physical characteristics. Today, it was all she carried with her.  Everything else was packed away neatly in that box waiting for the next time she picked it up.  No one else saw her for what her eyes truly told. I suppose, like myself, we focused on the smile, the bright colors, the laughter, the need to create beauty everywhere she went, but we didn’t understand.  Not really. 

                “Can I take it from you?” I shocked myself even as I said it because did I really want such a horrendous thing in my own home?  I had not even considered the full implications of what I suggested  even as the words spilled from my mouth.  It was impulsive. 

                She reached towards me and laid her hand on my shoulder, then looked me in the eyes.  “Only I can keep this box.  If it leaves me and my home it will die and I will lose all its contents forever.  I gladly keep it even knowing what will happen every time I pick it back up for this reason.”

                Feeling utterly helpless, I just stammered “It does not seem fair.”

                She smiled again brushing the loose hair away from her face.  “You are right.  It’s not fair, but it was never meant to be, and I have accepted that.  As should you.”

                “I don’t know if I can.” Could I accept it that the price of beauty and peace was grief and suffering? The cost of living was dying?  How contrary it seemed.  How absurd!  No, I could not…

                “You must” she said slowly, watching me intently even as I looked at her defiantly.  She knew my thoughts, that much was clear. 

                “I have been where you are now, and it was the unwillingness to accept this truth that kept me in the darkness.  I don’t know if you will ever have to go through something like I went through.”

                She paused and ran her hand through her hair again.  “But then again, maybe you only need to figure it out once it has already happened.” She was speaking absentmindedly as if I was losing her to her own thoughts. 

She looked down, suddenly uncertain.  I wasn’t sure where she was going, but there was a longing in her eyes and she appeared somewhere else.  “You try to rise above what you’ve been through.” She spoke in a whisper. “But ultimately you can’t.  It becomes who you are.  The ache…  it never goes away.”

                Then she was gone.  Her eyes were looking back through time, revisiting all the old emotions she’d felt over the years as if she were standing amongst her own memories.  Her eyes fell closed as she took a deep breath.  Then just as quickly as I saw her leave, she returned, and her shoulders straightened as she regained her composure.  How often had she been forced to do that?  Forced to smile, forced to go on.  She paused as I wondered and questioned how many times had I seen her put others before her own pain without knowing everything that had taken place in those moments like just now she had to decide to remain here where she was or stay gone in her memories?  How many times had I seen the smile not knowing what it concealed or what it had cost?  But I had not known!  I reminded myself and here I am still sitting here and even with knowing I still did not know what to do or say.  What a fool I had been congratulating myself on my successful friendship and not even seeing her for who she really was all along. 

                I was quite suddenly uncomfortable with her emotions and experiences, and I felt the need to fix them for her.  If nothing else, I could offer her some useful advice. 

                “What if you just…” my voice trailed off as I watched her for her reaction, because in those few moments, her face fell and her body tensed as if she was preparing to take a blow.  Her eyes full of emotion before- compassion, empathy, patience- were now staring at me blankly. 

                “Um…” I stuttered.  My discomfort was replaced with embarrassment. 

                I saw her right eye twitch, or had I been imagining that? 

                I felt foolish again and hated myself.  What did I possibly have to offer her?  Nothing, you fool- I told myself. Maybe now, I thought, would be a good time to stop.  I had no good advice, no experiences to glean from, no real understanding of the burdens she carried.  What could I do? Nothing.  This situation was beyond me. 

                “What can I do for you?”  I asked resigning myself humbly. 

                She gave me a small, cautious smile.  “You are doing it now.” I loved her smile and was comforted to see it again.

                “But I haven’t done anything?” I was so confused. 

                “You are here, and you listened.  You allowed me to show you a large part of me that no one else sees, sometimes only because they do not want to or do not care to, because if they did see that would force them to see me differently or make them feel like they’d need to reach out when they didn’t want to or know how to.  So, this was a great comfort to me.  No one want to be invisible.  No one wants to carry their burdens unseen. But sometimes we do, because it is easier than realizing people know and choose to ignore it about us.”

                I smiled relieved.  This did not have to change our friendship for the worse, even though it naturally would change as a consequence of creating a deeper bond with her. 

                “One question though. How did you pull yourself back up in the end?” 

                “Hmmm…” she paused leaning back.  “I didn’t.  I am still there.  That’s a place that you don’t really ever leave after you’ve been there. It’s always there around you.  Just waiting.  The grief, pain, sorrow- it is never really gone.”

                “Then how?”

                “One day, the beauty reached down and surrounded me where I was.  I wasn’t alone anymore, and I have not been alone since. A hand came down into my darkness, I took hold, and instead of pulling me out, the hand helped Himself in.  He has been here ever since.  Somedays I have trouble seeing that.  I have trouble seeing that I am not alone, because somedays all I want to do is reach up there and hold onto that box and lose myself in its contents, because I miss what it keeps for me so much.  Somedays I would be okay with losing myself.  But because I can now see that I am not alone, and that, in fact, there are other people just like me that have a box just like mine,  with each of ours still being distinctly different, I know that for now I need to be able to separate myself from what that box holds.  Each day is different.  Somedays are easier to bear, but the hard days are never gone.”

                Now I understood my role.  It was simple- she wasn’t asking for much of anything- but I could see it was easier for her to bear the trials she’d been given and never asked for through the small ways I could support her.  I was here now and knowing that she needed me- even though she had not asked- I could be here for her.  I could not take anything away, but I could be there on the days she had trouble seeing past the memories she had stored away.  When she could not see the beauty, I would see it for her.  That was my role I realized- and I also accepted it.