Good to Know

Tonight, I’m sitting on my bed, with my knees folded against my chest and for the first time, the blinds wide open and I’m looking out from my window into the streets awash with city lights below. Silence fills the open air outside and wafts its way to my room on the 27^th as the muffled sounds of the television in the living room continuously plead for dominance. But the silence prevails in me.

Everything around me is still—my books, my desk from a few feet away, the pillow supporting my back, everything, everything is in place—only my mind isn’t. My thoughts are clouded, yet a certain sense of clarity tugs at me: Everything has changed.

Like a slingshot being trajected straight to the past, I look back; I think back. That girl isn’t me anymore. The idea of her is that of a complete stranger. She is different, and I am scared of her. Yet a sensorial wave of comfort assures me, the wave, the wave is telling me: You are safe now. Safety surrounds you. You are safe from her, safe from the circumstances that failed you years ago. It’s all over now. You are in the clear.

Then the shadow calls out to me, but I do not want to be summoned. Only my heart wants to. I have grown so much and have come this far, I repeat to myself. One more thing: the girl is a stranger, leave her be. Now rain is pouring outside, the news says it’s a storm, and I remember when the storm once drove the shadow away. So. Far. Away. That for years I demanded for it to take me back—leave the girl, or rather the stranger, and take me back. But the stranger belonged to the shadow and I knew I needed to keep my distance. Composure is what’s necessary, and the wave reminds me yet again: that girl—that stranger—she isn’t you anymore.

The rain fully stops, almost to a halt, and the silence is back. Only it doesn’t feel entirely the same, for I now have it all figured out: the quiet has arrived. The silence carried away by the storm, along with the shadow, and the idea of the girl that I was. Yet I still yearn, deeply, for the shadow, but I acknowledge the quiet; the quiet is here.

Now, at almost midnight, I look back at the wave, and I say, I am safe now. Safety surrounds me. It is anything but good—to know, to be reassured of, that finally, things are different, and everything—everything has changed.