Words

When we found ourselves golden

Standing in the middle of a shopping centre, she was lost in a city she knew the intricacies of. She felt the urgency of all the shoppers rushing past, swollen with the desire to find something. The evening was unfolding above them all, the moon a hidden toenail clipping, a centre point to nowhere, waiting to be seen. She didn’t have anywhere new to go now, no place to call home, no room to hide out in where she could shut the door to the world, slam away the monsters.

Lost like a lift with its cables cut. Like a heart fallen from chest to the stomach pit. A dry throat and desperate eyes she searched for meaning in everything. When you no longer recognize the familiar, logic leaves, emotions pervade and rationality forgets itself.

She stood in the shopping centre, wondering what she could do next. Just returned from traveling, no room to rent, no home to find. Late night bar, tequila shots and urgent sex with strangers? A flight to anywhere but here? A family walked past her, solemn and disappointed, clinging onto each others hands. She recognized herself in their faces. The crying child who just wanted to sleep. The tired mother who longed for a break. The laughing teenager who just wanted to find the dress that would make her forget the mundane. The desperate need to fill themselves up. To find someway of belonging in and amongst it all. Standing in that shitty little shopping centre she realised that there comes a time when each of us has to make the decision to enjoy who we are, exactly as we are, no matter where we might find ourselves.

Escape comes from a Greek word meaning, ‘to untangle yourself from that which is holding you back.’  And in that moment she made the decision to escape from everything holding her back, all her inhibitions, all her expectations, or her ideas on how the rest of the evening might look. Walking out of the shopping centre she called an old friend and asked, "Can I stay with you tonight?" pulling that strong, bold sentence  from somewhere inside of herself.

‘Of course,’ he answered. So she hung up.

Seconds later she was cycling through the electric city. The neon lights, the street lamps and brightness of it all like a shock waking her up again and again. Pedaling furiously, she headed for the spot where her and the light might fade and they could jump into the dark abyss of the unknown together. Chest open, heart beating like a drum snare, wondering if the sun always knew where it was going to be the next time it rose.