Where Time Freezes

I didn’t know what I was doing.

I’d put myself through this silent hell for long. So why couldn’t I stop myself?

Did I not have sufficient self-control to finish this once and for all?

I’d struggled. Every month. Every week. Every day. Every hour. But it just kept coming back. And even though I knew what I was doing wasn’t good for me. Even though I knew it would injure me. And ruin me for good. Change me always. I kept at it.

I would never be the same person. I wanted so much to go back to that day I didn’t know what I was doing. When I didn’t understand the distinction between right or wrong. When I didn’t recognize that there was evil in the world.

I wanted to go back to that day when I didn’t know that dreadful things happen to good people for no reason. I wanted to go back to the days when I’d put my arms inside my shirt and tell people that I’d lost them. Or I would just restart the video game whenever I knew I was about to lose. Those days, I would sleep with all my stuffed animals so none of them would get irritated.

Oh, those delightful days!

I was young. Innocent. A child full of life. I had that one pen with six colors, and I would try to launch all the knobs at once, so I could write with all the colors. I would pour water into the bottle cap and act like I was taking shots. I would wait behind the door to startle someone but then leave a few minutes into it, because I had pee. I would fake being asleep just so my dad would carry me to bed. Oh dad, where are you now?

I remember watching the ants migrate and be fascinated by their courtesy. How were such small, fragile, creatures so sophisticated?They would stop to salute each other and chatter amid it quick movements. Others carried heavy loads and I enjoyed watching it all.  I used to swallow a fruit seed and get scared to death that a shrub would grow in my belly. I used to even think that the moon was pursuing me as I walked. And how I couldn’t wait to grow up and explore the world more. But here I am. All grown up. And seems like I am just going through life’s motions. Never truly living it but making the same mistakes over and over.

I keep swearing each day that I’d learned my lesson, that I’d stop, that I’d finish it once and for all. But right when I think I have control of myself. The thirst, that want, that crazy need creeps back into my being, engulfs my veins, takes over my body, and consumes the little self-control I have left. Then mercilessly shreds my will into insignificant little parts and trudges on it.

I have tried. I have worked so hard, but nothing ever works. Nothing ever stops me. Nothing stands between me and this shameful problem.

I sit alone watching the rain cascade down the glass on the window reminding me of myself. The dignified girl that supposed the rain drops rolling down the on the glass window were competing, and she was the sportscaster. Now the drops feel more like my thoughts touching the right start, moving downward unsteadily before drifting far away from the initial path it had taken.

The television hums from the dark corner and jolts me back to the present. I shudder as the cold air grasps my skin. I feel the constrain of my problem running its hands over me, seizing me away from my life. Leading me back to what I wanted to get away from. My eyes darkened as emotions filled me. I knew it was wrong. I hated that I always knew. I hated everything that I was. Everything that I had become. Everything I have done to myself. And everything I lived for… Because I lived for nothing.

Yet, somehow, this problem had me persuaded that I lived for everything that mattered.

I could feel it staring at me seductively. Whispering. Coxing and standing by for me to give in. I wished that it could set me free; I wanted to be free. Why couldn’t it just leave me be?

I stood up. Hesitating. More tears coming to my eyes. Rolling down my cheeks as my feeble strength waned. I was powerless. The need digging into me. I shook with dread, aware of what I was about to do to myself.

I sauntered, stopping every moment, struggling to drag myself back. I didn’t have the strength. And so, I walked step after step, towards my wrecked life’s meaning.

I reached my destination. Stared at it and flashed. “You win” I said. Then reached for that needle. That syringe that held my life’s purpose. I squeezed softly. And time froze.