Nine Lives

Yellow

Yes, university offers a life...but not the kind I imagined myself living. New people, new place, new subject, new future...yet all the same experience. I wanted to learn more and earn knowledge and skill in a career I wanted to pursue, but I didn't know what exactly that was yet.  I wanted adventure; culture. I applied for multiple travelling opportunities, obtaining the place of a life time on a trip to Asia travelling across the South-East. It was all planned - travel insurance, itinerary, flights and accommodation. But, sometimes legacies don't happen. For me, my legacy was...forgotten.

So now, while everyone I knew was living their lives all across the country, I was stuck in my home town, living with my parents and still trying to piece together some type of plausible, prissy pathway.

Don't be fooled by my ungrateful guilt trip...my parents are amazing; both hard-workers, incredible role-models and closeted comedians. They met in Toronto, a late night river walk turning into a 20 year marriage, 2 daughters and a life with another. They adored me and my sister, encouraging me, the oldest, to pursue whatever I wanted when I was ready, and Viv, the youngest, to finish her weekly reading before the lego could come out. There was twelve years difference between me and Viv, but I couldn't remember a life without her. On rainy days, she was my sunrise - the shining ball of joy that gave spotlight to the sky. She had started to ask questions as to why I wasn't in the big tin can that flew in the sky - her terminology for aeroplane - and why I spent so much time sleeping instead of helping her build lego cities. She was too young to understand most of the reasons why, so we told her versions of the truth. Things she understood, but wouldn't question.

Viv was a reflection of me at her age - big turquoise eyes, layers of frizzy curls, a soft button nose and a lopsided smile. If only those qualities grew old with you...i was no longer the sweet dolly my neighbours used to refer to as 'china doll' - the innocent eyes stained, the auburn hair damaged, the button nose that grew out with crevices and the smile that required years of bright blue braces. The reality is, we aren't all dolls forever - the china always cracks. But at age six, those worries were distant fairytales; the familiarities of wicked witches being locked up in a castle with a fire breathing dragon to guard.

I took a long swig of water from my bottle and threw it in a nearby bin, changing the song beating through my headphones. The day was still so quiet - the world yet to awaken to the milky sky. I continued my pace, drawing in air as I blew it back out, feeling the fresh oxygen drug me with a daydream. Usually, I ran along the back paths of our neighbourhoods sports centre. Looping through the trees, crunching the autumn leaves and scaring a forest animal or two. The route was picture perfect, but today I didn't fancy perfect...

 I turned left instead of right, jumping a fence and burrowing under a fallen branch to reach the old railway bridge. Trains never passed here anymore, It was a derelict area - the bridge sprouting small flowers and eroding damp rocks. I ran up the stone steps and onto the platform of the bridge, slowing as I reached its centre. The tracks seemed never ending beneath me - an array of urban decay surrounded by suburban nature. The city was about 40 miles North, the sparkling lights and skyscrapers only visible at the highest point in the town, a place I loved to visit. This track led there...a pathway to another life. The life I wanted to be living.

I let my eyes follow the slabs for as far as I could muster without squinting, the cotton candy fog stretching sugar into the foreseeable horizon. I admired the conflicts of nature for a matter of moments, catching my breath being the excuse I used for an extra minutes rest. I smoothed my palms over the sharp edges of rock, the years of commuters and travellers carved into the stone, holding memories of the busy station this once used to be. I took a deep breath, pushing down the memories of this place, my heart strings tugging me further into the abandoned landmark. I carried on down the other side of the bridge and onto a concrete path, leading back into the normalities of my familiar town. I ventured into the bushes aside it, taking the mud trail deeper towards the cornered entrance to the stations old platform. There was multiple signs warnings of danger and boards covering up holes in the fence, but as I approached the last high fence blocking out the tracks, I spotted the opening. Behind an overflowing bin, there was a shred of sunlight shining through sweet wrappers and crushed beer cans. I knelt down to the fence and shoved the bin aside, revealing the cut wire of the high fence. I smiled to myself, just like I remembered. I crawled onto my knees and shimmied under the catching wire, somehow managing to wrap my shoelace around a loose branch. I kicked to loosen its hold on me, but I was having no luck. I shuffled around, blinded by the rising sun as I sat and undid my lace - frustration building as I cursed my tight knot.

The nostalgia started to seep in, pain and pleasure cascading through my veins and ripping my heart open, once again, to the realities that were now merely fantasies...a life I didn't know how to love anymore.

Song Dedication - Yellow, Coldplay