Sara's Thoughts

 

 

Sara often found herself deep in her own thoughts; it was like a well for her, deep and dark; sometimes flooded with emotions. Emotions that made her feel as if she was tirelessly treading water, unable to rest or catch her breath. At times she felt as though there was no escape from her them or the pain that went ran along the deepest recesses of her mind.  She felt as if she was doomed to forever reside within the well of her head.

 

Sara wondered if she had done the right things in life, if her choices were as pure as she believed they were. She had always tried to do the right things, gave up the things she wanted and acquiesced to the demands of others and their needs. It was in part these actions that now sent her to her own thoughts, her own questions and her realization that thinking really gave her no answers and yet she stayed there in the well of her own thoughts; mired in treading water and in deep pain.

 

Sara prayed for relief to see the sun and to feel its warmth. She wanted to soar like a bird, high among the clouds to feel that sort of unrelenting freedom but the walls inside the well of her thoughts were covered in dark silt. Each time that Sara tried to scale the walls she would find her hands slipping on the silt, unable to get a hand hold that would lift her out of her thoughts, out of the darkness and into the light. The sun seemed so distant to her and yet each day she could feel its warmth beating down upon her, beckoning her to try harder to escape her own darkness.

 

She needed to escape her thoughts, how she questioned everything, the words of those that claimed to love her, the feelings of wanting to cry and the urge to scream. Yet, Sara didn't know how to have people listen to her, how to get them to understand who she was deep inside even when she tried as hard as she could. She knew that this frustration lent itself to her retreating into the well of her brain. It was safe there, quiet and isolated from the hurt and pain she had known in her life and she was comfortable in the stillness of her thoughts. Sara liked the safety of her thoughts for she understood them better than anyone ever understood her. The thoughts to Sara were like a security blanket that covered her, they were hers and hers alone and she didn't feel the need to share them with anyone for she knew that even if they listened they couldn't understand.

 

It was that knowledge and understanding that kept Sara within herself. No one could rescue her and yet she remained hopeful that the one person she needed most would someday understand and accept her. That he would stand tall in the sun above, hear her thoughts and drop down the life line of love and inspiration that would assist her in coming out from the abyss into the light. She needed that, she needed him to be there and to hear her and so she waited.

 

Her wait seemed as endless as the images that ran through her head, they were all on a loop that circled and circled in and around her.  At times her thoughts seemed cartoonish, filled with lavish colors and a multitude of characters.  Her tenuous periods of waiting reminding her of a clock who’s minute hand turned at rapid speeds, just flitting out of control.  She wished many times that she could pull the batteries from the clock, to end the wait and she wanted desperately to cut the loop on her thoughts.  Sara didn’t have the energy to do either and so she sat and she waited, waited for him.

 

A moment turned to hours and hours into days, she called out to him silently with each breath that she could muster up.  He didn’t respond, he couldn’t respond for he could not climb into her head, into her thoughts and even though her thoughts were about him, about her past and about the time that they shared and he was always there it was as if he too was intrinsically intertwined with them and could not escape.  How could he help her, throw her a life line when she kept him a prisoner in her mind, Sara knew that she couldn’t keep him there and that she could not allow him to be suffocated alongside her in the deepness of the well which were only her thoughts.

 

She laid down that last night, clinging to her memories, knowing that they were hers and that she needed to set them free.  She counted, one number after another, a ritual that she found helped lull her to sleep, but this time the numbers were different.  This time the meanings that Sara had assigned to them were of the days that she had been alone, silent in her thoughts.  She counted and she recounted the days, the nights and the hours and with each increment she realized that each of her days, each of her moments were filled with more thoughts and memories of him, of her love for him and despite her hurt and her pain she knew that only he could pull them out of the darkness, out of the silt and mess that had been created in her head.

 

And as sleep approached her, as the numbers began to lull her into slumber, she reached over and placed her hand upon his stomach as she had done so many times before.  She heard his breathing and felt his heart beating within his chest.  For the first time in months Sara had a sense of comfort as she laid there feeling so much love for him.  For in this dream, for in this moment in time he was there beside her, loving her as much as she loved him, even if it was not reality and only a dream that floated in the deep recesses of the well which were her thoughts.

 

Thanks to Brent Shuttleworth for the music.