When God Closes a Door, He Jumps Out a Window
©Rachel C
Have you ever been walking down an unfamiliar street, heading toward an address you’ve never been, and realized that you have no idea what you are doing or how to get where you are going? This feeling comes over you, like a warm sickness in the pit of your stomach, and you could turn circles around yourself, point in any direction, and it wouldn’t matter which way you went, because you either have to find a way home or reach your destination, and you have no clue which way is east. I hate that feeling, when all you want to do is find the train and head home, but you can’t stop walking until you’ve reached the station. You’re damned if you turn the wrong way, but damned if you don’t. If you stand still, what is going to happen to you? Nothing, because standing still is out of the question—standing still is suicide, eventually you’ll get tired of standing in a strange neighborhood and have to start walking again. You can’t stop until you’ve found a way home. You can’t stop.
So many people have made analogies to this feeling, “life’s just a ride”, one that doesn’t stop, turn around, or let you off. There are two ends to the tunnel, “but you’re just as far in as you’ll ever be out”, and if you turn around you’ll repeat all the mistakes you’ve made and be back where you started. “An hour glass glued to the table”, the sensation of running along sand dunes, “keep moving forward and things won’t fall apart.” Things will fall apart anyway. In time everything finds a way to crumble. Don’t stop, don’t stop, though. Just don’t stop moving.
I could have stayed in Chicago. Found a way to live, maybe dirt poor, but maybe happy. I don’t know that I would have been, though, which is all the problem with decisions—you have to try one option before you can understand which direction was the better way to go. So maybe I chose wrong, but the other side of the street is still a mystery to me. What if I had stayed? I could have been miserable where I was living, so poor I couldn’t concentrate, and having to deal with the consequences of poor grades. But, would it have been any better than this? I am facing retaking all of my courses again, making up for lost grades by losing time. As for poor, here I am paying for my car, my food, my rent, my tuition. I have a job, yes, but forty hours a week is hardly comfortable here. I was talking about comfort with a girl I work with; I was saying soon I might finally reach that level of consolation, after the next pay check. I don’t think I was lying, to her or to myself, I think some sort of relief may soon be on its way, but I don’t know how long it will last. But, then again, if I can find comfort here, with only a few pay checks and the savings growing steadily, I might have in fact made the better of the two decisions. But how will I ever know?
If, in twenty years, I don’t still regret leaving Chicago.
I asked myself, on my knees in the middle of the floor, staring up at a photo on the wall, “am I making a mistake?” I never answered my own question, and I got on the plane anyway. Would it have been a mistake if I had stayed?
I was damned if I did, I was damned if I didn’t, and I’m damned until I find a way to get back to where I belong.
My mother tells me I can’t be in control of this situation, that no one can. Is the situation, then, in control of me? If I stopped walking, I would have let the feeling of being lost overwhelm me, and I never would have made it to the polling place that November morning. If I stopped walking, the situation I’d found myself in would have overtaken my ability to find a way out. I didn’t stop walking, I did what I could to get where I was going, and once I was there, getting home was like an old habit, getting home was a walk in the park. Isn’t it funny how, once you learn how to get where you need to be, turning back becomes habitual, second nature? Right now I am doing all that I can, and I guess that is to find a little comfort in the sound my soles make on the concrete. If I don’t stop walking, at least I feel like I am doing all I can to be a step ahead of the situation.
February 16, 2007
Author's Note: Different names for the same thing.
