The Stories~ Part 13 A Shattered Whole

The toll that this crazy out of control roller coaster had on my mind and body was intense. While visiting, Nicole would watch me switch from extreme to extreme, racing and pacing one moment, then physically unable to move from my chair the next. Everything was intensified, every sound, every sight, every thought. And it was all too much.

I began to stray off hospital grounds on my walks, and I discovered that across the street and just up a little, there was a hidden road that ran parallel to a river. At first it became my sanctuary...I would go and sit at the base of a tree, feel the earth, and moss, listen to the rushing sounds of the small rapids. It was a reprieve from my uncontrollability...because it was always constant. As my rapid cycling intensified, I became paranoid that someone would see me, and so I would disappear under the bridge, tucked up in the corner out of site.

I'd been going there a few times a day for a week, when suddenly...my coaster derailed. I was so exhausted from the constant ups and downs...everything about me felt as though it weighed a million pounds. I was just too exhausted to do anything more. And I wanted out.

Beneath the bridge, my eyes fixated on this large piece of shale. I stared at the tiny cracks running all through it. Amazed at the shattered whole of this piece of the earth, I identified with it. Broken in so many ways, yet somehow, somehow managing to stay together. I sat there and stared at this image for what seemed forever...and then I picked up a large rock, and smashed the shale into individual pieces. I rummaged among them, seeking out the sharpest bits. And there beneath the bridge, surrounded by nature and beauty, and the shattered remnants of what once was whole, I held the rock to my wrist.

Though sharp, it wasn't sharp enough to accomplish what I had in mind. I went over and over the same place, and then finally, defeated, I curled in a ball beneath the bridge. I knew no one would look there for me...no one had yet. It seemed to me that I could just stay in a ball and end it there. And for a good hour thats what I did. Curled tightly in the corner against the damp cold, my arm bleeding, I just willed myself to die.

Finally, I uncurled myself and pulled myself from the ball. I considered walking the four blocks to the convenience store to pick up aspirin and Tylenol, try that way, but realized that I actually had absolutely no energy left to do so. So instead I turned and walked the few steps back to the hospital, hiding my arm from the nurses on the way in. I washed my wounds, and crashed in bed, shutting out the world, and myself as best as I could.