Walk the Line

Where to begin?

No. Wait. Don’t answer that. I’ve long since learned the answer to that, and all those other questions, doesn’t matter.

Maybe it never did.

I remind myself for the… how many times has it been now? A hundred? A thousand? More than that?

I live here. I’ve been living here for years. I’m safe here. This is my home, where I live, and it’s my bed to sleep in and my food to eat. I have a job and friends. I can see those friends when I want. My life isn’t as bad as I think it is.

Right?

I look in the mirror. The thing I see in the glass is my face. It always has been. And it’s going to be the next time I look too. Just because the features distort a little and I have to squint my eyes to make it stop doesn’t mean it isn’t me. I just need to have confidence that it is me. Confidence I need to keep reminding myself to have, how wonderful.

What to do, what to do…? I don’t have anything lined up for today, not that I can recall… I guess it’s time to watch TV or YouTube until I go to sleep. So I put on the TV, peruse my streaming services until I give up, and put on YouTube anyway.

I put on one video from a channel I like. It’s funny, but I don’t seem to be able to laugh. I put on another. Another half an hour disappears while I just might as well be staring into space. But the one perk is it gives me sounds to focus on that aren’t coming from my own head. I don’t like those sounds.

The shadows from the window creep across the floor, slowly arcing as they always do, until they’re coming from the other direction now. The daylight hours are almost done, and I feel no better for it. I decide I might as well lay down in bed and watch TV in there, maybe I’ll find some peace of mind in winding down.

The recommendations, the feed is the same in here as in the living room. I absentmindedly scroll through the “Watch it again” list just for the sake of it. Maybe one of those will help me out. In the end, at least I’m still able to pick a video and I resolve to let autoplay do the work for me from then on out.

I don’t know or have the energy to care to find the point where the videos blur into one another and it all dissolves into white noise. But without the anchor of focusing on what’s there to hold me, that focus begins to slip into what might not be there… I feel that sinking feeling again, that buzz in the back of my head that boils down to that wonderful message.

You are not safe.

Not safe in… my own home. Yes, my home. And once again I have to analyze every shadow on the wall to make sure they’re not moving, press my back against the wall to make sure I have a visual on every direction something could come from. I mean, my door’s been locked ever since I got home, and there’s only one way in. There’s no way someone with a murder weapon is lurking just out of sight. No way… no way…

Oh, but if there was a way… I sense movement out of my peripheral vision. I dart to identify the threat, but there’s only a shadow on the wall. Once again, just a shadow. Shadows are so much better when they don’t move. I miss when I didn’t have to deal with moving shadows. I mean, I feel like there was a time without all this fear and pain… but for the life of me I can’t tell when that time was. How long has it been since it ended?

Was there ever a time like that? Or am I just in another bout of wishful thinking? There’s always that piece of me that dreams of better times, of things that once were and have yet to be. Everyone tells me not to lose hope, but instead if anything I’ve grown fearful of that very hope. Each morning I dread getting out of bed, even when I don’t have to leave the house. I don’t even know what it is I’m fearing, but it’s an omnipresent force weighing me down. I can’t tell where it is, but I know it is there. I’d rather crawl under the covers and pray nothing finds me there.

But for as afraid as I am, I still do have that piece. Bouts of wishful thinking keep happening no matter how many times I’m burned. Giving up seems so easy… and some days, I’m very certain I have, and yet… I keep finding myself back in that spot over and over again. The precipice between hoping for better and bleakly accepting what is.

Then there’s all the evidence that this condition of mine is off the norm. I see it with my own eyes every day. People who are able to go about their business without hesitation, not second-guessing every decision, able to move and speak freely. People whose minds aren’t their enemy. I don’t have it in me to envy them for such a blessing… but I keep cycling around to yearning to be one of them.

My thoughts are swirling, and it becomes hard to keep my eyes open. I do the only thing I can do, breathe and try to still everything, inside and out. Breathe, and silence all thought indiscriminately. Breathe, and pray I keep breathing. Breathe and try to do so like each one isn’t being considered as possibly my last.

The path to being anything resembling a functional person is a thin line, a tightrope, and every day I have to shakily put one foot in front of the other over and over again. Standing still is just as dangerous as taking each new step – the only safe place was behind me, and I can’t ever go backwards. Each inch forward is a new wave of fear… and no matter how many times I survive it, I never grow confidence that I’ll survive the next one.

Somewhere deep inside, a shard of me wants to cry. But just like my laughter, all hope of acting on it is for naught. So I just lay there. If anything, it’s probably the most comfortable I can be at this point. The steadiest position to take is standing still, or something to that effect, I don’t know if that’s actually true. It feels true to me, though.

It’s almost time to try to go to sleep. I don’t usually remember my dreams, which I count as a blessing. Who knows what horrors my mind plays to me while I’m resting? I’m glad I don’t have to know. I used to be afraid of going to sleep itself, but I like to think I’ve managed to come at least as far as not needing to put myself under with medication night after night.

If anything, sleep is perhaps the easiest way to walk the line. Time effectively passes for me until I wake up, and I have no control over dreams, so I can basically absolve myself of that perceived responsibility. What happens happens. I just close my eyes and wait for them to open them again.

And I do it in my room. In my home. Where I am safe. I am safe. Keep repeating it until you believe it. So, I decide to take matters into my own hands. I tell the TV to shut off in 2 hours, like I always do, turn it up a little so I can hear it better, and shut my eyes. Tossing and turning happens as it will, but I will be out before the TV is. I always am.

This is perhaps the closest I can ever get to peace on the inside, which feels bittersweet. Would I want that to change? I suppose nobody would blame me for that, but that kind of constant yearning would no doubt get me down, so perhaps that’s a matter best settled tomorrow.

I’m yawning now while I keep my breath steady. I can tell it’s almost time. And tomorrow, with nothing lined up again, I’ll do what I always do. I’ll walk the line.