FACING THE LEFT BEHIND

It was a particularly warm Sunday morning. The world outside was already in the midst of its rhythms, neighbors mowing lawns, others washing cars. Others, in their Sunday best, raced off to church, but as the world was happening outside he was inside. To be exact, he was in a room he hadn’t stepped into for some time, a room that had been closed off and ignored, but here he was standing and staring. He was staring at a cheque. His whole being boiled with frustration as he tried to come to terms with the amount. Whether it was a big amount or a small amount, what did this amount suggest about his worth? What did this declare about his value. These questions ran through his mind in such a consuming way that all the noise of outside was nonexistent. Nothing outside this room existed. In this moment, all existence was a dim dust filled room with only a gush of light flowing across the wall and desk.

On the desk was the cheque and as he continued to stand and stare he started to wonder how long $20,000 would last. How far can it go? And when it runs out, what then?

However, the cheque was not why he found himself in that room. The cheque was in his pocket when he walked in, he found himself in this room because of what was in the desk, what was tucked in the draw and abandoned a long time ago.

He brought himself to open the draw and it was there, just asking to be opened, read, reconciled. He wanted to believe that he had forgotten it was there, but he hadn’t. It’s always been there, never far from his mind. He knew that the answers he needed more than ever were going to be connected to that small black notebook. But here he was. Frozen. Just starting, staring at the notebook.

Even though he knew what he would find when he opened it, just knowing what to expect wasn’t enough to bring himself to open it. The idea of opening old wounds, of discovering something new, something missed last time was crippling.

Maybe he felt that he had finally created a life for himself and did not feel the need to shatter it, but that was before the cheque. Seeing the cheque on the desk and the notebook in the drawer, he knew he was kidding himself believing his life wasn’t already shattered.

Covered in dust and tattered, he had come back to it once before but could not bring himself to open it that day either, so what would make today any different?

He tried not to think about it, to distract himself, to break through this limited existence, hear the noise outside the window and think of the rhythm and normality of the world outside. However his thoughts would quickly retreat back to his limited existence of a room with a desk and a cheque and notebook. His thoughts took him back to a time when it was just a blank notebook, each page screaming of possibility, fresh, pure and new.

He started to embrace the truth of this moment, the truth that today he was going to open it, but how long could he stand there and try to believe that he wasn’t? Because the lie was tempting, the lie that he could move on, that he could throw it away. What if he could somehow convince himself that what was inside that notebook no longer represented him? No longer haunted him? No longer needed to be reconciled?

The day was getting hotter, the air was getting thick. The old house would heat up on a day like this. Built before ceiling fans and air conditioning, with windows that were mostly jammed. It was meant to be a fixer upper, but life got busy and it just became a burden. It was something he had learnt to live with. Some people drink to punish themselves for their choices. He felt that this house was plenty punishment enough. He drank to survive.

The heat, the dust, the moment was almost unbearable. He had to make a choice. This was going to be a moment that defined him. It was a moment that was forced upon him with this cheque but forced or not, he was now in control of what happened next.

Would he allow this notebook this widow to the past to rob him of his future and continue to haunt him?

And then it happened. A moment of clarity. In that moment he knew the future he hoped for was never going to be a reality if he couldn’t be honest about his present. He told himself he moved on, that he moved forward, dealt with it, but he knew he was standing still. That he had never truly dealt with anything.

He woke up knowing he was going to come into this room, open that draw and come face to face with the forgotten.

So he sat down, looked down at the notebook in the draw, with hands trembling, he reached out and grabbed a hold of it. In one quick move he blew away the dust and placed it on the table. This was his moment, his quiet triumph in this room, in this heat. He changed his narrative, and he opened it up. He took a moment and felt the pages between his fingers and thumb. He could remember that feeling of possibility again.

He flicked one page over to the next and then the next and the next.

They were all blank. The truth he was running from, the truth we all run from is the pages of our dreams aren’t always written, lived or realized.

As children we believe we can be anything and for brief moments as adults we allow ourselves to believe it again. In a moment like this he had become excited and bought a notebook to record his ideas and plans, smitten by the possibilities. But the rhythm of life is cruel and it often snatches us back. The notebook remains empty to remind. Unfinished, tucked away in a drawer as a relic to dreams never grasped.

Today was different. The cheque told him what he could no longer do but the notebook declared what he would do. In a fierce passion he picked up a pen, his dreams would no longer remain unwritten. It was time to stop punishing himself.

To dream is to live.

It was time to live again.

End

By Scott Wellard