Everything we do in life, every footprint we make, is a search for truth, for self, for love

Words

By Beverlee Blampied (C) 

Sometimes
The words you most want
To believe, to feel, to hear
Have been hidden inside you
All along, only mute
Waiting for your own approval
To be heard

At A Loss For Words

At this very moment we are sitting on the steps of my deck as the sun flickers through the leaves of the large Maple tree. We have talked for what seems like hours, but it also seems that there is still so much left unsaid. My friend has confided that she is running on empty - that there is a vast, needless space inside her - that her life is subtly falling apart. She is literally bored to tears even though her schedule is full. She can’t find meaning despite all the rituals and beliefs that frame her days.  She doesn’t want to do anything, but she does everything anyway. And she cant figure out where her life went wrong when she has played by all the rules. She tells me that lately she has become obsessed with The Wizard of Oz - as if she can’t find her own way home - as if she would like someone to offer her a new heart, a new mind, or perhaps just the courage to change. But then she looks at me with eyes that are tired and frustrated at the same time and says “but then I remember that in the end of the story the wizard is just a tired old man with a fake voice”. She still wonders, though, about the glittering red shoes that Dorothy clicks together. Maybe she should by some red shoes, I say jokingly, trying to bring some humor into the seriousness of the conversation. And then she tells me she did - bright red shoes and shiny black ones. She also bought some fluffy, white towels and several new outfits and perfume so sweet-smelling that it made her choke. But the emptiness was still there after the purchases. And now everywhere she goes she feels as if she doesn’t belong - as if she is a stranger in her own skin. She continues to be restless yet exhausted at the same time - at night she can’t sleep but during the day she can hardly keep her eyes open.

I suggest that maybe she is depressed and should seek some medical help but, no, she insists, it is simply that she no longer sees a purpose anymore in anything that she does. I again tell her that that is part of the ‘definition’ of depression.

We decide to go out for dinner. I figure that maybe a change in scenery and  routine would help to cheer her up. We go to a cozy cafe bathed in the golden sunlight that had seeped  into the stones throughout the long, hot day. She stares at the smokers by the window and tells me that she wishes she smoked. I glance at her in shock but I quickly try to conceal it. She, who had always been the good girl who wouldn’t even cut one class when we were in high school. She, who had never wanted anything except to marry, have children and bake chocolate chip cookies . She, who was the one that I had depended on never to change - to stay uncomplicated and satisfied with her life choices.

But now she says she wants a way to escape from her life without really going anywhere. “What is she trying to escape from?”, I ask her. She shakes her head - she doesn’t know. I tell her she is treading on a dangerous edge. “What should I do?”, she asks me.

I want to pour out all the simple answers like learn, pray, do good deeds, teach, volunteer, seek your spirituality, and let the answers magically fix my friend’s life. I want to tell her that there is no wizard who can automatically give her life a purpose, but the words stick in my throat because I’m afraid that I will lose her right away with all the cliche answers. I don’t think she wants to hear any of those answers. But what does she want to hear? It is so hard to think clearly when another’s pain blurs into your own. I want to find the right words and ideas to open a door for her. I think about her troubled marriage, her husband, her children, and I think about how I am probably the only one who knows that her picture-perfect life is balanced so precariously on a pile of shifting emotions. And it is a daunting responsibility, as her friend, to not say anything that will send her spiraling further into her dark tunnel.  How do I help her - what are the right words to say as I watch her staring at the group of smokers outside, blowing white, wispy illusions into the star-studded sky?