The Storm

The Storm

There is a storm coming. I cannot see it just yet. The horizon is tranquil, almost painfully still. Still, as if the very wind is holding its breath. The sea is calm, as if it is bracing for something it cannot yet feel, but somehow knows is on it’s way.

I cannot hear it either. The sky is silent, the clouds quiet, and even the waves seem to whisper as they gently lap against the shore, not far from my window.

But I know the storm is out there. I can feel it in the slight, imperceptible shifting of the air in the room around me. I can feel it in the anxious though silent gathering of the birds outside and above me. I can feel it in the occasional trembling of my fingers, in the quickness of my breath and in the dread pooling quietly in the pit of my stomach.

How can I be so sure it is coming for me, you ask ? For it has been there for days, lurking just out of sight and at the edges of my consciousness. It is gathering dust, and dark clouds and fistfuls of despair.

Despairing of what, you ask ? I cannot answer that, I say. I don’t know. But I can smell the dark grey swirls of it. It smells of a thousand goodbyes unsaid, a thousand moments stolen and a thousand stories left untold. It speaks of a hundred doubts and the many, many times I knew with certainly that I was lost.

Well, you scoff, you took that risk. You knew when you opened your heart, it would eventually break. Oh yes, I knew. And it will. As it must.

And then, finally, it will appear. The relief of finally being able to see it, to look my storm in the eye, to stand my ground and say, come on. Have a go.

Not one to waste a challenge, it will be upon me then. And the relief would be short lived, my mind says, as it starts to lose its grip on reality. And even though I have been bracing for months, the living of it would be stunning. I can almost feel it already, as It takes me under, a roaring in my ears, I cannot see beyond the blackness in front of my eyes. I can feel nothing but a weight so intense that I am sure it will bury me as I drown. Drown as the solid ground beneath my feet disappears and becomes quicksand. The roaring continues as the storm rages in and around me, on and on and on.

Eventually, the roaring stops and my feet take hold once again. I start to realise that it will never be truly calm again. Oh it will be silent, but never tranquil. I will get up and walk, but I may never recognise myself again. The breeze will be gentle again, but will never feel familiar. Not for a long time.

Soon, there, you see, the waves will start to become calmer, soon they will lap gently against the shore again, but I will not know them. For these will not be mine, I will not know these waters. I will know this shore, this air. I will not recognise this room, the curtains are new, the window strange and unfamiliar. Does every heartbreak bring with it, a loss of self? Almost as if you have to relearn who you are, who you were, before you poured yourself into a dream.

But you knew, that that dream was meant to be destroyed, you say. Yes, indeed I did, but I didn’t really believe it, I reply. Well, now you believe. Yes, I say, I do now.

I will not drift. I will remain on solid ground, but what ground, I do not know. The storm would take my unsaid wish with it. I had wished for the stars, for joy and laughter, and for a while, oh for a little while, I believed they were mine to grab. The storm would take the dream that never really was meant to be, would return the stars to the skies, and leave something else behind. A joy shaped hole, as if the absence of joy is somehow better than despair. A laughter shaped hole too then, for surely joy follows laughter.

Yes, the storm is coming. It will be here soon. And I will be here to meet it. It is, after all, my storm, of my own making, like an old, familiar aching shoulder, that is always there. It waxes and wanes with time, just like my storm, for that too, is always deep within. I may no longer recognise the air, the sea and the room around me, but the storm is mine. I know it well, like the old childhood friend I know better than I know myself.

And in that, at least, is some measure of home.