Revival

Surviving

I wake up, but instead of hearing the bird chirping or the sound of dad cooking breakfast or the blare of my alarm, I hear nothing. Sometimes the eerie silence still scares me.

In the beginning, I would punch the walls and try to scream, as if I will suddenly break through and be able to go back.

On the particularly dreadful nights, my parents would find me fast asleep against the wall I'd been thrashing against. Some nights I'd wake up as they lifted me into bed, and watch the tears chase each other down their damp cheeks.

But on the truly indigestible days, the worst of them all, I wouldn't feel anything. 

I would sit down somewhere for sometime and do nothing at all. I wouldn't eat, I wouldn't sleep, just sit with my knees pushed close into my chest like a broken lawn chair.

I would watch my hollow chest rise and fall and forget how to do anything else.

I'd lose track of how long I'd been there and just sit, listening to the haunting silence.

I'd play my music as high as it would go and will myself to hear something, anything.

Somehow, this was worse than all the sobbing and bashing against all the walls in the world, could ever be.

Even after a month had passed, I still caught myself turning on my favorite song, crumbling at the result.

Irrationally, when no one's around, I'd sit down cross legged and watch familiar colours bounce across the TV. Then I'd grab my headphones, and listen to the silence bomb against my eardrums. I'd sit there and pretend everything is normal, even just for a little while.

Before I got sick, I remember how I would scream the loudest parts of all my favorite songs at the top of my lungs.

The gentle whoosh sound the wind makes when you walk around the block on a silent morning.

The warm tickle you get when someone whispers in your ear.

How I always loved my mother's laugh. How my dad would hum the same melody when he made breakfast.

I think I miss those things the most. The ones that were always there, but that I never enjoyed quite enough at the time.

Now I think about the future sounds I'll miss.

Like how I'll never be able to hear my children's first words.
Or appreciate their lips softly utter "I love you" as they hug me before walking into their first day of school. I'll never listen to them coo "I do" at their weddings.

In a world so full of noise, it's amazing how much your life can change when you feel that you can no longer contribute.

After spending weeks wrapped tightly in my damp bedroom blankets, I finally decided to start to unwind this tangled mess that I was.

I remember going up to my mom, pleading to reclaim the shards of myself, beginning with school. We argued for a long long time, but in the end she caved.

I think what finally broke her was how much this empty noise was slowly breaking me. I think she knew I needed something from before to hold on to, to keep me going.

I didn't even think about how I would handle it all when I actually went back to school.
I guess I thought that everything would somehow go back to normal, everything could just fall perfectly back into place.

I remember walking down the halls. Scanning everyone's lips, watching them rapidly moving and constantly changing.

It was like the world was stuck on the fast forward button, and I just needed everyone to slow down for a second to let me catch back up.
The world ran away without me and I was left feeling so utterly alone.

Strangers would pat me on the back and I would jump, confused and disoriented as if they just appeared out of nowhere, no sound in their wake.

My friends would call me from down the hall as I got something out of my locker and I would be completely oblivious.

My classmates would talk to me while they looked down at their work, and I'd try to read their lips but be left with only chunks and never full thoughts.

My heart was racing and I tried to calm myself down but all I had was a bunch of jumbled, mixed up thoughts.
Then, before I had time to sit down and untangle all these knots, they'd already moved on to something else.

I made it through half of first period before sprinting out of the classroom.

I ran out the front doors and ran and ran and ran until I collapsed against the cold side of a building.

I remember how it felt like the whole world was crashing down around me, exploding at the seams.
I remember pleading the world to stop, to remind it I was still here, to make sure I wasn't forgotten.

Later, my mom picked me up and we both cried together as she held me tightly.

Being back in that loud school, I find that was the first time I really listened.

Listened to everyone speaking over one another and cutting each other off. Listened to people breaking inside. Listening to everyone else failing to listen.

I think I listened better than most people at that school, even though I was the only one who couldn't hear.

Soon after my 'incident', all my friends slowly started to leave me. I think they just didn't know what to say.  I forgive them because I wouldn't know what to say either. They are probably grateful it didn't happen to them, and I would be too, but this is my life.

I'm stuck here.

I'm just trying to live, but there's no instruction manual and when I try to run, I trip. I feel like I'm falling and crashing and plunging into the darkness and when I look up I see everyone else soaring.