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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Rush.

I was strange, restless, but not restless in a good way. Restless in a lost way. Like I had to find somewhere I felt comfortable, because I couldn't seem to feel comfortable where I was.

It happens fairly frequently to me, every once in a while. There are some days when I'm just in a funk. I guess this was one of those days.

It was a sort of indifferent funk. I've been in it for about a week. I couldn't walk it off, nor could I sleep it off. Watching Holocaust movies didn't even work.

So I took the elevator to the top floor of the second-highest building around. And then I took the stairs to the roof. And then I climbed a 50-foot vertical ladder to an even taller portion of the roof with a book of 18th-century prose in my hand.
And then I felt.

As I climbed that tall ladder with a huge book in one hand and my other gripping tightly to the frozen cold metal rail of the ladder, I felt.
It was fear, but it wasn't indifference. Anything is better than indifference.
Maybe it was the knowledge that the only thing that kept me from dropping to a miserable, inevitable death was my one, shaking hand grasping onto one side of the ladder above my head and my two, shaking feet standing on the rung below.

But it was a rush, a rush of exhilaration stemming from the knowledge that my sole, short existence rested in the grip of one hand, literally. Knowing that I could drop abysmally though the gray, chilly air at any moment, and knowing that it was very possible.

Knowing that with each rung I climbed, I was a couple steps closer to death, closer to teetering on the edge, closer to not ever being able to finish the story I was reading.

And it felt good.

2 comments:

  1. I love this post of yours. I felt - to feel anything but indifference, when that's all you've felt for a while. Fear, although an emotion we tend to avoid, isn't it exactly what we need sometimes? To feel something, to experience that momentary adrenaline rush, that sense of complete control over your life, the choice that will always be ours - the one thing that will always be ours.

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  2. You're fierce. God I love your intensity!

    The past few weeks I've been dealing with a part of my past, memories of someone dear whom I've had to let go of, which have more often than not brought me to tears. But I felt.

    With this you remind me what a blessing that is. Thank you, I needed this. ♥

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