Help
I know this is a little early for a second post, but I think I just about had a panic attack. It's not my first time nearly having one by any means, but I was very close.
The reason? Purely psychological, trivial perhaps.
... Does anyone relate songs to places or experiences as vividly as I seem to?
I heard the opening chords and my heart seized up as that feeling came rushing back, and something was bubbling up in my throat and I knew I had to stop this song, I just had to...
... for those who'd like to know the background to this (if I can get through it without going over the edge), here goes:
Love Reign O'er Me by the Who was the first song I forced myself to listen to after getting back on the bus upon visiting the Vietnam Memorial during our 8th grade trip. So much has changed since then. It was even raining during that day at the memorial, and I remember so much of it just from that song. The way the air conditioning on the bus chilled my rain-wet skin and left goosebumps on my arms. That smell of excitement and freedom and knowledge surrounding me (it now enslaves me). I was wearing my stupid hat that day; I don't even know where it is now. Maybe I gave it away like everything else I thought I owned.
During that short walk through the memorial, I remember was fighting to feel something. I saw all the names engraved on the wall, but I wasn't truly connecting them with the thousands of bodies that were buried in graves somewhere (Arlington Cemetery? Is that it?). I saw the flowers and pictures at the base of the monument, pictures and postcards, but they weren't really registering with me. I felt inhuman and lower than I ever had before. It was a rough time. I wish I could forget.
Then I saw a note scrawled hastily on what looked like the back of a brochure for something. It was wet with rain, so I knelt down to read it. I'll never forget these words. They took my breath away.
"Dear ____, I'm here with the son you never had the chance to meet. You are his hero."
The reality suddenly swept over me like a tidal wave, and I didn't know what to do. My eyes burned as I now fought the tears that were straining to burst out. I noticed B____ taking a picture of me a few moments later, his obscure photography stance behind me reflected in the black marble of the memorial. Such a stupid, ugly time to take a picture of a girl in pain. Couldn't he see I was turning upside-down? Didn't he know this wasn't the time to act so him? Such silly games we had played, he and I. I'm glad those days have passed. I wonder if that picture is still on his digital camera, and what he was thinking as he pressed the shutter that day. I will be forever immortalized in that snapshot, my hair damp with rain and my eyes fixated on the names that made so much sense to me for those few moments. There was nothing I could do but let the sadness take over after he walked away.
Afterwards I was the only one that cried. I hugged a friend and tried to get ahold of myself as a miniscule crowd of classmates watched. Look at her, the sensitive one, I imagined them thinking. With my head buried in her shoulder, I shoved the thoughts aside and let myself be comforted as gently as I could bear.
... This man never met his son. This boy grew up without a father.
Everyone else was in a somber mood (these things are obviously contagious). We weren't kids anymore. There was a new depth of sadness in everyone. But a cellar door was beginning to open somewhere in all of us, blossoming somewhere between the throat and the spine, spitting out ink as it burrowed deeper, machine-like. This was a new place to hide and store smiles for better days, a place for matchbooks and milk cartons and anything in between. From passing by the roses lain at the feet of the fallen and touching the names of the dead on the cold, wet stone, there became a certain satisfaction in breathing (and even more in realizing we still could).
In death, do you feel regret at the life you have lived? Do you miss people? Can you still understand loss?
In reliving this memory once again, I only miss what I've lost that much more. Longing cannot bring back what you've thrown away. (That's 3 things now... high school isn't agreeing with me, apparently.) They say to live in the present, but the past is so much more forgiving. It's the part that's already written, the only certainty. I'd rather sleep in my memories than fly through new ones only pieced together as an escape.
I consider myself I creative, mindful person, yet I fear falling as much as the next. These wax wings melt in the sun, you know. And where would I drop then? In what metaphorical ocean would I be doomed to drown in?
I'm in a mournful mood. This is too much. In the course of 45 minutes I have been driven momentarily insane. Thank you and goodnight.