Clearing Space
I only know what is in front of me and behind me as far as I can see. I do not know what lies beyond these boxes. The only thing I know is that I will not be able to breathe unless I move them. So I begin to touch them one by one. Their number no longer frightens me. At least we found the room. Before this, we did not even know where it was.
I am inside a dark room. Ahead, there is a pale light seeping in just enough to reveal the outline of a domed ceiling. Its color is uncertain, neither warm nor cold. As if it has passed through a dusty morning before arriving here. But something blocks its way. It cannot flow fully toward me.
Things piled near my feet shorten my steps. If I stretch out my hand, I hit a surface. If I try to turn, boxes rise behind me like a wall. My range of movement is narrow. My breathing is measured.
At first, I reach forward in the dark without knowing what I will touch. My fingers meet the dry, rough texture of cardboard. Slowly my eyes adjust. I begin separating the boxes from one another. It takes time to accept that if I want to clear my path, I must lift them first. The light appears distant, as if the longer I stand still, the further it retreats. I ask myself, why now. Why all at once.
Still, I know this much. Unless I move through these boxes, no space will open and no exit will appear. The darkness no longer only frightens me. It begins to exhaust me.
As I open the boxes, more boxes emerge from within them. Like Russian dolls, each one holding something smaller, older, more fragile inside. Just when the room seems ready to settle, it falls into greater disorder. Yet with every opening, an object appears.
A photograph.
A glass marble from my worst day.
A scent carried from my best one.
As I look at them one by one, something strange happens. The objects disappear. As if they only needed to be remembered. In the space of a blink, something that was in my palms is suddenly gone.
Happiness burns in one way, unhappiness in another. But as I look back, I realize this. Unhappy days are sharp. They have stories, beginnings and endings. They pass.
Happiness is scattered. It does not fit into a clear frame. Sometimes it follows me like a shadow. Sometimes it touches my shoulder at a moment I did not even call for it.
In Anna Karenina, there is that line about happy families being alike. For a long time, I believed the true essence of story lived inside pain. I thought nostalgia and depth always rose from suffering. Now I see that what makes us ache is not only sorrow. The happiness that stretches across different extremes, that refuses to resemble itself, leaves marks just as deep.
It becomes clear that while you can let unhappiness complete its story and come to a close, happiness does not end, it only changes form.
As the boxes grow fewer, the room expands. As I clear the space, the lines of the dome become clearer. The light no longer seeps from a distance. It strikes the walls and multiplies. It was not the light that was blocked. It was my vision that had narrowed.
Now I understand that this room, whose location I did not even know before, is exactly where I am meant to be. It widens when I do not run. It brightens when I choose to face it.
Maybe the point is not to leave.
Maybe the point is to make enough space to remain.
