I Know That Place

I know that place.

I know that room, closed off from the world, darkened, light seeping in under the door, isolated, surrounded by family and the world but alone.

I know that place.

Hearing the laughter just a word away, hearing footsteps, or silence, feeling the presence of the people in your life close by.

Might as well be a world away.

Might as well not be there at all.

There's a storm brewing inside that room. Loud, fierce, harsh, angry, a storm crashing over the dweller-in-the-corner, isolated one, lost one, lonely one, angry one, desperate one.

There's nothing to cling to, there, no one to hold onto.

There's no hope of a brighter tomorrow, or even a brighter five-minutes from now.

Just noise, noise, noise in the head, noise, noise, noise and

SHUT UP!!!!!

So the dweller-in-the-corner, isolated one, lost one, lonely one, angry one, desperate one looks for quiet.

He finds it in the bottle of pills. The gun. The blade. Blessed silence.

It isn't that he doesn't want to live. It isn't that he doesn't see hope in the coming days. It's that he's surrounded by the clamor of his misery and is worn down, worn out, worn weak. He finds the silence because he just. Can't. Listen. Any. More.

When you are that tired, it's hard to remember sunlight, moonlight, the dance of the stars, the song of the Universe. When you are that tired, it's easy to believe that the sunlight, moonlight, the dance of the stars, the song of the Universe no longer exist, maybe never existed. It is hard to remember that the silence for you is nothing but hurt for the ones just on the other side of the door, the ones who would come if you called out, who would quiet the noise until you could find peace some other way, if only you called out to them, reached for them, let them in.

Maybe he didn't mean the silence to be so final. Maybe he just wanted a little while. Who knows? Who can say?

His rhythm is stilled and he has slipped free of whatever hurt him so deep, so complete, so final.

I know that place. The difference? The difference is a speck in the great wide nowhere; a promise. I promised not. Never broke a promise in my life, won't do it in death. He didn't have that, I guess. Didn't have the one fragile, tiny, tenuous, irritating thing. I sit in that room all the time, and want, want, want that quiet, that STOP to all the noise and miserable cussedness. I have to wait it out...because even if I hate how I am living, hate how I am being, hate, hate, hate...well, it's mine and I'm stuck with it and I can, when things settle down again (because they do settle down...or is it up?...again), I can think sensible thoughts and figure out a way to change or accept, to Zen it into submission, into a different sort of silence, a living silence, a silence of my son's laughter, sunlight, the heartbeat in my body and the heartbeat of the world and it evens out.

I do so wish I could have given him that silence, instead.

I didn't know him well at all, even when I knew him, but I wish...I wish I could have told him that it can be borne...not just now, but year after grinding year, it can be borne...and I know, I know you don't want to, that the idea of bearing it for all those years is enough to make you throw in the towel, that you want the happiness that looks so real, so easy, on others...I know...but it can be borne, and can even be beaten into some semblance of a life...contentment...joy all the more blinding for the shadows you've known.

I can't explain it, after all these years of trying; I can't explain to someone who hasn't lived it, what a crushing thing depression can be. How it touches, infiltrates, taints everything. How it wraps itself around you and squeezes until you wonder if you'll ever breathe free, breathe easy again. How it seems like it will never end and how it can be so difficult to see that life is worth living.

I'd like to help the people left behind find some perspective - help them understand that they didn't do anything wrong, the fault is not with them and what they said, didn't say, did, didn't do. They want to know why they didn't see, why he didn't give them a chance. They think they should have known!

When someone doesn't want you to know, you won't. No one is that prescient. To look at me, you'd never know what lives in me, devouring me from the inside out, gobbling up my psyche and demanding more, more, more, always more. As for why he didn't give them a chance...likely he couldn't. Likely he didn't have the voice, couldn't find the words, was just too lost in the moment. No one caused it...it ate him alive.

I do know that place...this place...