Safe Place

Rain beat down on the windshield of my car, drowning out the memories that usually haunted my mind. Beyond the commotion, darkness awaited. A faint sound grows through the deafening rain. Everything started to jumble in my head: Todd, friendship, pain, life; nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

It all started with me sitting in a tree. I wanted to see the surroundings at a higher level. The higher I went, the more unknown the place seemed. The sun slowly dove into the corn fields and night came out. Silence filled the air and the moon lit up the tree. The light made the tree seem magical and the silence enhanced the serene feeling of the area. Across the street I noticed a single light. It came from a familiar house, which contained someone I used to know. This certain person introduced me to this spot, which contained one special tree, a nice playground, and good times we shared together. Even though good memories hung around this area, nothing but loneliness was left.

A couple months before the night of the tree sitting and the overthinking of life, a content feeling overcame me while sitting in the same tree. The only difference between the moment now and the moment that happened in a couple months is that I was not lonely in this moment. Everything seemed vibrant and full of life while sitting in the tree. Later on in the distance, I finally saw my friend whom I been eager to talk to all day. When she finally finds her usual spot in the tree, we both just sat there and enjoyed the perfect day. All the thoughts that usually crowded my mind disappeared and nothing seemed important in this moment. We spent hours talking about our dreams and our aspirations in life. We also talked about the deeper problems that usually stayed in our heads and kept us up at night. In this moment talking did not feel like a chore. It did not feel uneasy nor boring or feel like another burden in my mind. It felt real and relieving to know that someone else in the world could understand the pains of life without judging the way I see it. The knowledge that this happened in the place I felt the safest, in Todd, made the moment even more special.

The first time I saw this tree it looked like a normal old tree that sat in the corner of a children's playground. At the time, my new friend, the reason for my presence at this place, saw something more than just a tree and a children's playground. All i saw was a old playground barricaded by cornfields, lined houses, wide roads, and walls of trees. As my friend led me to the tree, I learned that this tree was not just any tree. It had a name, Todd. The name came from an unknown person that etched Todd in the bark of the tree. As my friend went in the process of climbing Todd, a slight breeze stirred up and the leaves of the tree gracefully did a back-and-forth motion, which made the branches slightly move too. It seemed like in that moment the tree suddenly came alive and did a welcoming motion towards me. So I started to follow in my friend's footsteps and climbed the tree. Finally, I came to a stop and looked through the branches and leaves. I saw the sun that sat on the clouds across from me and rows of cornfields that filled the bottom half of the view. The whole view took my breath away and made me think of all the good times I could make in this tree. That's when in that exact moment Todd, the tree, became my ultimate safe haven.