The surface

I couldn’t see the surface.  I kept sinking in deeper.

Each day brought more chaos.

The mess swirled around me.  I tried to stop it.

I begged for it to stop.  I cried out, desperate.

“My arms are open,” I heard, as a faint whisper.

I ran the other way.  Whose arms are open? Why? What???

My son was so angry.  My daughter, far away.  I was numb to all of the life that kept moving despite me.

“PLEASE HELP ME!!!”

“I CAN’T DO THIS!!!”

Standing in the snow covered driveway with a shovel, trying to clear a path for the moving truck that was blocking the road, I wept.  The moving truck was one that I drove, down the un-plowed road, (just like the rental place advised me not to do), tires spinning, smoking, stuck… now, blocking the whole road.

My neighbor, all dressed up, looked at me in her car that couldn’t get through, like I wrecked her life.  Like I did this on purpose. To her.

I gave up.   I sat down in the snow and let it all spin around me.  I didn’t care anymore.  I couldn’t change it. It just wouldn’t stop spinning.

“My arms are open.”  I heard it again, as I was sitting, hopeless in the snow.

I had no idea why I kept hearing these words.  Every time I heard them, I felt peace, for that moment.  And then, it faded.

My son fractured his back.  As it healed, our relationship crumbled even more.

My daughter, still far away.

I could see them, my children, and hear them, but I just kept walking away from the path that I knew I needed to return to.  Away. From. Them.

“Arms…” Right. I know: “Open.”

And then, baggage.  Someone told me that I needed to unpack my bags in order to be healthy.  Ok…

That same day, I broke up with my boyfriend of three years, so I could focus on unpacking.

That same day, I took off the first backpack, unzipped it, and looked inside.

The things that were swirling around me in the snow, by the moving truck, came flying at my face, as I opened the first backpack.  That peace was there too, for a moment.

Another bag.  Unzipped.  More memories.  Mirrors, lot of mirrors.  “Look closely,” I heard in that same voice, whispered.

As soon as I opened a bag, looked closely inside, at myself, and worked through my scars, another bag appeared.

As hard as it was to unpack all of this baggage, life was getting less chaotic.  Spinning slower, more manageable.  A little bit healthier.  It seemed, to be… working.

I heard the whisper again.  And felt the peace.  I didn’t run away this time.  I ran to… the arms.  I felt a peace that cannot be explained.