Step into the Fire

The first time I stepped into the fire, so to speak, of my inner world was like deciding to stop and allow a drunk driver to run me over. I had just learned of the terrible gossip my friends had been sharing about me. 

I chose this moment to face my pain. I thought I could transmute it. Could I follow it to completion? Whatever that is?

Another friend, Lauren, kindly offered that the gossip had been passed around. She had heard it from Tara who clearly had heard it from Ann which meant that Jessica was probably there too. And given that Bailey also knew, there’s no way they weren’t all talking about it together.

Lauren, in her own predicament, wasn't even a part of the core friend group. She had invited me over to ask my advice on information she knew about me that I hadn’t intended for her to know. 

I sat on the barstool in her apartment unaware of what was about to happen. I raked my fingers through my hair waiting for all of the group to get off work so we could smoke and get dressed for the night. 

My mouth must have fallen completely to the floor when she brought it up. I tried to play it cool but inside I began to rage. With all the fake niceties in the world, I fumbled my way to the door and left her standing there in an empty kitchen. I always thought I’d see her again but I didn’t. 

I took the steep drive out of the parking lot screaming at the top of my lungs. Every piece of gossip I had ever heard from Tara about anyone else tumbled into my mind. It was proof. Of course. She gladly shared my gossip because the news was burning a hole in her voice box. 

The worst thing is that I had shared my secret with Tara under the prickliest of vulnerabilities. I wouldn’t have shared it at all but for that creep - a guy who she introduced me to - lorded it over me whenever he was around. I wanted Tara to see him for who he was and to bring me back down to Earth.

I had kept the secret on my chest for almost 10 years and when I finally let my guard down she took it and scattered it to the wind. Even that creep had been more discrete than Tara.

I was deeply shocked to see my story out in the world. For endless days I sat alone in my apartment. I didn’t want to confront them. I knew I’d say something I couldn’t take back. I moved only from the bed to the table to the toilet and back again. I did not eat. 

For those days time had no meaning. The light from the sun shifted imperceptibly until it was dusk again and again and again. I cried. I journalled. I slept. I pulled old clothes apart with my seam ripper. I stared out the window. My mind felt like mush. The pain was going nowhere. 

On the third evening, just after sunset, the room turned from bright orange to gray. I sat at the foot of the bed staring at the broken piano. My mind was empty except for this image of a massive ship. It was meant to be turning but it was painfully slow. I could see the wind in the sails but the current held the ship in place. The water beat against it crossways as it inched its way northward. 

I had heard of people facing their pain. Is that what I am doing? 

Late the next morning, in that hypnotic space between being asleep and being awake, my foot edged toward a colder spot and slipped over the side of the mattress. 

I could sense a stranger, there in the room with me, sitting in the rocking chair by the closet. Her skirt was pulled up over her knee and she played with the hem of her dress. Her long hair was dark and pinned on either side. It fell to her waist. Though she looked so innocent, I knew she was not. The black tattoos on her legs and arms seemed to marre her skin. 

How did she get here?

Though clearly asleep, she spoke to me in full sentences. This is something my father used to do. 

“You have to stop running.” She said. “You can turn around. It's not as hard as you think.” 

I am so happy to see her. There is nothing I can say. In a moment she begins to fade. She is murmuring now but I can still hear the liquid sound of her voice, “You have to.” She says.

In my sleep, I inhaled a deep warm breath and my heart swelled with gratitude. It was a welcome moment after days and days of putrid self disgust. And yet she dissolved before my eyes and in an instant the gratitude faded to plain old depression. 

My studio apartment came sharply into view. I could see the dust filtering in through the bay window. It collected on the amp and the mic stand and the small stage I had set up there. 

For an hour I turned her suggestion over in my mind. Of course I was running. Even sitting there for days doing nothing but pulling apart the seams of old apparel, I was running. I have been distracting myself – maybe my whole life – from fully processing the acute pain in my solar plexus, my near-constant companion. 

I wanted to turn around and face it. I wanted to give it a try – anything to make this pain go away.  All I had to do was focus. Right? Focus on the pain and stay with it until it dissolves. Easy enough. I was already brimming with negative emotion. What’s the worst that could happen? 

I curled up in my bed, took a deep breath and stepped inside. The pain was like a hot stove. My mind did everything it could not to touch it – conceptualize, gossip, wander, placate, write a story – distraction is powerful protection from the things that lurk inside. 

I did everything I could not to get distracted and then my mind split in two. There was one part of me that was in red hot searing pain and another part of me that was standing back watching it unfold.

I watched my body crawl with agitation. I watched myself writhe with anxiety. The pain took a form I had never seen. It was green and yellow like snot. It smelled musty and damp. Its edges were sharp and the angles obtuse. It seemed to be the only object in a sea of infinite nothingness.  

I breathed it in. Again and again and again. And only when it had fully consumed me did I see her off in the distance. She was an adolescent version of myself. Her skin was dark and grey. Her hair, long and stringy. She didn’t walk but crawled like something I had seen in that early 2000s movie, The Ring. 

I wasn’t scared. I was disgusted. 

I asked myself, “What do you feel?” And the response was clear: “Disgust. Nausea. Agitation. Deformity.” 

I stood still while she came closer. I worked tirelessly not to get distracted. “When was the last time you had this feeling?” I asked. I took another breath and then something in me fell.  

The feeling of static flickered all around. I fell deeper into my memories. I went back before all this current drama, back before the gossip. Back to a parking lot on a hot humid night. I can see myself openly and unabashedly talking to myself. I am shuffling around the parking lot in my pajamas smoking a cigarette muttering to myself. I had woken up that morning and my body was different. Something had happened. I could not describe what had happened but I was catatonic with self loathing.

The hysterical cries of a mad man in the apartment at the end of the row followed me as I shuffled the parking lot. He was screaming and sobbing and scratching his face, “How could you leave me?!” He hurled. “I’ll kill myself!!” He threatened. “You fucking bitch!!” He was screeching.

I knew exactly where I was and I didn’t want to stay. I forced myself to focus. I asked myself:  “When was the first time you had this feeling?” 

And here, I was moved to somewhere unexpected. 

A different voice rings out from far away. I am fully in my body again but it is very small.  I am in the bathroom. Everything is white all around. I am sitting on the lid of the toilet. My feet do not touch the floor. A baby in a carseat is in the bathtub. The baby is crying. It shrieks out against the tile and buzzes my eardrums. I can not see the baby in the seat. I am afraid to leave the potty. 

My body feels to be on fire. My little arms and legs crawl with agitation. What do you feel now? I whisper. And a little tiny voice whispers back, I am scared. 

I force myself off the toilet to take a look at the screaming baby. He is red with heat and purple with exhaustion. He is my brother and I can not help him. I am not strong enough to lift him out and he has been crying like this for a very long time.  

I tried to take another breath but it was lost. My body spiked with distress. I could not stay. I can not see it through. 

I had spent this time desperately trying to stay focused and now I was desperately searching for a distraction. I allowed it to pull me out of the memory and back into my apartment. 

Still sobbing, I stumbled from the bed to my tiny bathroom. My tears splashed down in big droplets and cut off the ant trails that crisscrossed under the toilet. I let them fall and fall. I was focused still but not entranced. 

Little by little the tears stopped coming. Bit by bit, the memory dissolved and turned finally into exhaustion. I had transmuted something but I wasn’t sure what. It certainly wasn’t over. 

I could see the light again filtering through the bay window and the dust settling on the equipment. I could feel warm air on my back and hear the crickets out in the field behind the house. 

It’s been 10 years since that first attempt at stepping into my pain. I’ve been visited by that scene over and over again but have never gotten past the potty.