Through the Window

I looked out the window, a past-time I simply detested.

I used to imagine that my Prince Charming would come and save me, but that fantasy had long since faded away in place of a new desperation, that I could simply touch the cool grass under my bare feet. I'd say to myself, "If I could feel the dew-covered grass in fall, I wouldn't mind being stuck behind this window for the rest of my life." That was a few years ago. Now I know that would never have worked.

When I think about it, which I tend to do a lot, I realize there is so much more I would do if I could break through this glass. Each day I ask myself the same question, "Tiana, what would you do if you could escape?" And each day I respond with a different answer than the day before, "Oh, Tiana, if I could escape there would be too much to tell you. But . . . if I should just name a few, the first thing I would do would be swim in the Pacific Ocean. Oh, to feel a thousand pounds of water engulfing me, hugging me as if to never let me go. Light smoothly filtering through the water to rest on my skin. Salt laying on my tongue and bubbles rising around me.

"I would lay on a blanket; a spread of cheese, meat, and crackers on a smooth wooden cutting board beside me. A field of purple flowers and surrounding sparkling-tipped mountains in every direction. A white lily cradled delicately between ten fingers.

"I would walk through a forest; an archway of branches, moss, and leaves laying overhead. My hair woven softly into a mystical up-do, enchanted by the small birds that would hum by. The smell of damp earth would crawl through the massive oak limbs, and wind through the stray footprints left behind in a swirl of dancing. At the same moment the sound of a faint, long forgotten lullaby would give its own song."

I stop. I flinch. I thought I heard a voice. It felt close enough to touch. It seemed as though I could reach out and hold it close to my heart if I could only find where the broken song was coming from. Sometimes this would happen to me. Seeing phantom hands, feeling phantom touches, phantom voices. It only reminded me that I was suffering. I was alone.

After this occurs, I stop thinking about what I would do, instead I try to forget how lonely I am. Every time I think about the fact that everybody else in the world has a relationship with another, I feel a pang in my chest, a mallet banging on my heart like a drum, over and over. Like someone has grabbed a hold of my heart and is trying to squeeze the life out. I constantly feel like I am missing out – but then I remind myself: I am. Recently it occurred to me: everyone is missing out on something. If you worry about missing out, you will never truly live in the present, you will be living in a world of "what if's". And because of that you won't ever experience a genuine and joyful life. And yet, that is exactly what my life is: a mere story of "what if I could escape?"

Sometimes, people will walk by my window. Not once have they looked my way. I used to take it personally. But I now realize that they simply don't recognize I am here. They don't know what I am going through and how desperately I need help. They don't take the time to observe and notice what and who is around them.

When they do walk by, I will sporadically imagine what their life is like. What I would do in whatever situation I visualized they are struggling with.

A lady, wearing high heels, skinny-jeans, and a white blouse, links her arm through a gentleman's muscular one. She, of course, does not want to be there. I imagine that in her mind all she can think about is her sickly father lying in his bed. I (in her place) unlink my arm from his, stopping him in his tracks. "Kyle I can't be here, it doesn't feel right." I nervously fiddle with my long necklace, constantly worried for my father.

"I knew it all along! You hate me and have been playing me ever since we met! I knew this relationship was a mistake. You can have it for all I care." He hurls an engagement ring box at my feet, "I'm done."

He storms off with me left in his wake, trying to explain with no results. "Its . . . no, that wasn't what I meant . . . Stop! Please!"

He doesn't stop. Doesn't even spare me a glance.

Many other times happen in this same fashion. Sometimes its an old woman walking a leopard-like kitten. Or once, a four-year-old boy. There was a balding lawyer, a shoe manufacturer, a life councilor, a florist, and others; all different in some way.

I will sometimes pace or will sit looking at my damp reflection. I will jump on the spot or do math in my head to pass the time.

Then, one day, I decide to turn around. It had never occurred to me that maybe I could see something different from that side, but then it dawned on me that maybe I would get to see a lake. So, I do.

The moment I start to turn my head I jump as I realize that there is a hand hovering near mine, I stare at it, willing it to turn into the phantom hands I have always been seeing, but it doesn't. Instead it holds steady, beckoning me to take and follow it.

My mind shivers at the thought of touching something else other than myself and the glass. We have become such good friends I don't know if I will be able to handle someone else's presence, their hand being here already feels like an invasion of my space.

But I take it.

I know now that if I didn't, I would never again have had the chance. I would be stuck behind that glass for the rest of my life. Feeling sorry for myself and living in a dream-like world where everything could be as I wanted it but without anything to make my life worth living.

When I turn around, the first thing I notice is the amount of people standing there waiting for me. Most of them look like they have been waiting for a long time, holding their breath every time I turn my head. Wincing every time I banged my head on the glass waiting for someone to notice me sitting there. For they knew that all these people were here for me, if only I had asked.

Now, you may be wondering why they didn't just tap me on the shoulder or force me to turn around. The truth of the matter is that they did tap me on the shoulder. They were my phantoms. The voices I heard, the touches I felt, the people I saw. But I didn't want to believe they weren't phantoms. For if I put myself out there and tried to believe that there were people there, I was in danger of finding out that no one actually was there for me. If I didn't look, then I had the excuse that I didn't try, but if I tried and there was no one, I would have to face the fact that no one loved me.

They didn't force me to turn around because they couldn't. I wouldn't've mentally allowed them. Some might've tried – the younger ones of course—to turn me around, but I realize that the more they tried, the harder I looked down the street thinking there was a better option just around the corner.

They had to wait for me to turn myself around and notice them waiting.

The man whose hand I was holding embraced me. Holding me tight and snug as though I might decide to turn back around and go back over to Oblivion's side.

The man holding me I realize, is the one that has been waiting the longest. He has bags under his eyes like he hasn't slept in ages. He holds himself limply, yet with every second that passes it seems as though he gets more energized just from my presence. His arm waivers ever so slightly once in awhile. As though his hand had been outstretched from the second I had been looking out that window.

If I had only turned around I would have realized that I did have support, people did notice me. And if I had looked at the bigger picture, I would've realized that there is more to life than just the what-ifs.

The End