Storms

There was an almighty storm rumbling outside. The walls of the house seemed to be made of paper, as each crack of thunder and scratch of scattered leaves tore through the dark room. I was staring at the ceiling, and had decided that I officially felt Dead Inside.

Of course, I was being that kind of melodramatic that only really comes out to play in the darker hours of the night. But still.
Finally being reunited with my family after nine months of galavanting around Ontario, to actually have people hug me and smile at me and pat me on the head and tug on my arm and hold my hand… it made me realise how much I had lacked that contact in all the months previous. Not that I was really complaining — I do very well on my own, the problem being, I seemed to be doing too well on my own most of the time.

So I was staring at the ceiling, gripped with the terrible thought that I had done nada since getting off the plane at Pearson in January, no connections, no triumphs, no nothing. There was only me, the ostrich with her head in the sand who was systematically burying the rest of herself in as the months trudged on.

The shutters were rattling. The rain hit the windows like bullets. I fell asleep and dreamt of what I usually end up dreaming about when I get stressed: Hannibal Lecter.

It’s not your classic, Anthony Hopkins, “sth-th-th-th-th-th” Hannibal, no: I get creepy, plastic-faced Mads Mikkelsen. The whole dream is a game of outwitting Dr. Lecter, by playing double agent. I am a Will Graham character of sorts, and I have been sending all my friends to the slaughter in order to win over Hannibal’s trust. Yep. He kills them all. The good thing is that my “friends” are actually big-name Hollywood actors (bye-bye, Elijah Wood). It eventually comes to the point that Hannibal insists on murdering my sister, and that’s when I have to step in and reveal my double-agent status (which has obviously been sort-of compromised by the fact that I’ve, uh… just killed all my friends). The dream then goes down with a struggle between Hannibal and I. I wake up before either of us deal a lethal blow.

I figured that it was some sort of metaphor for how I was only really caring about family at that point? I wasn’t sure. But it didn’t bode well.

That was the first night in Boston. The rest of the holiday was a blissful mix of family times, traipsing the streets of Beacon Hill looking for the perfect coffee spot, playing scrabble (and the made-up words that resulted), glasses of wine and pumpkin bread and giant pizzas and walks around Harvard.

Now that I’m back in Toronto, I feel a fire lit underneath me. Taylor Swift’s new album has done something to my brain… chemically. I’ve got to get out there and start doing more, more, more. I don’t want to finish this year with the same, cold feeling of Nothingness that I felt that night in Boston. Oh, did I mention I quit my job that I had previously waxed lyrical about? Yep. It’s all part of the plan. The “plan”. Whatever. Everything is temporary. Everything is to play for. Who knows what I’m going to be doing in three months’ time. This year has been a serious lesson in transience, but it shouldn’t have been one in solitude.

Walking home from the supermarket, a man held out his hat for spare change. He caught a glimpse of me and said, “oh, your hair is changing colour!” — talking about the silver streak that scores my hair. I smiled and nodded. “You are a magical girl,” he decreed. I told him to enjoy his night. “Thank you!” he replied, “and always be happy.”