This Too Shall Pass

“Regrets collect like old friends. Here to relive your darkest moments. . . . . I can see no way, I can see now way. And all of the ghouls come out to play. And every demon wants his pound of flesh but I like to keep some things to myself. I like to keep my issues drawn. It’s always darkest before the dawn. . . .”

            There comes a point in every gypsy’s life when he has to decide when to cut his losses, tie lose ends and move on where the winds takes him. In my case, the wind was taking me back to my Texas hometown: a place where I grew up on popsicles, love from my grandparents and childhood dreams. This was the pit stop to my future.

            Life on Gladstone had become . . . . . exhausted, if I could pick a word to describe it. A home is only as wholesome as the heart that beats within it. Unfortunately for me I could no longer feel the heartbeat of the home. Not a flutter or twitter-patting of any kind could be felt within the walls. It was like living in a hollow shell and silence was the only sound I could hear on the late night’s home alone. I even tried bringing positive energy in the house by placing a bowl of sea salt water at my window sill which is said to do so. But all I saw in the reflection of the salty water was a sad soul. What else was I supposed to do?

            It was happening again. That feeling that I had taken everything I could possibly get from a home, but it was something more too. I could feel a constant negative energy taking pleasure from gorging itself on my life force. I could almost hear a smile from the shadows I had once feared as it took another sip from the chalice that held my sparkling luminosity. The poison from this presence spread throughout my life changing me from the inside out. The balance that my Libra nature was born with began to lose its grip on the scales. I craved the venom like a vampire to blood and found it through overindulging in vodka and wine and allowing my heart to become cold as ice and hard as stone. Every heartbeat hurt like having a sledgehammer pummel into me as I pictured actual human emotions trying to pump themselves through the chambers.

The hangovers were reminders that I was still human, that I could still feel and it was in a hangover that I saw myself clearly. I was unhappy in my current living situation. The regret and shame that I had collected over the months began weighing hard and heavy on me. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who sought out to hurt others just to derive a form of happiness from it. That wasn’t in my nature. I found the person I needed in the midst of my destruction: the gypsy. I moved away from Gladstone and away from the past that would have gladly dug the grave for two.

I moved back to Texas, back to my hometown, back to that yellow house on 3^rd Street, back with my parents. It was the only place I could think of that I could move into on such short notice. Not that my parents minded, they were actually happy to have me back. I had stayed with them for a summer when I was nineteen because I had once again become unhappy with my current living situation.  After the last box was taken out of the bed of my sister’s truck, it hit me; this is where I needed to be right now. This is where I needed to recharge, to sweat out the past year in a quiet peaceful setting.

After moving in, I kind of fell into a deep melancholy the likes I had never felt before. I would dread seeing the morning sunrise because that meant I would have to play pretend for the public when all I wanted to do was lie in bed till I got up to shower. I took it as a sign that my spirit was withdrawing from the venom I had indulged in my previous life. That’s the thing about starting over; it’s always a little hard to get restarted.

In the final days of my melancholy I found myself in a state of panic and agony. There were a lot of upcoming events that I didn’t know if they were going to turn out good or bad in my favor and I was feeling emotionally overwhelmed both personally and professionally. I tried everything to empty my head from what I was feeling, but nothing seemed to do the trick. So I traveled to the back room of the house where I knew I could be in solitude and immersed myself in music. It wasn’t until I got to India Arie’s album “Testimony: Vol 1, Love and Relationships” and found the track I needed to hear.

“All of a sudden I realize that it only hurts worse to fight it. So I embrace my shadow and hold on till the morning light. . . . This too shall pass. . .”

In a moment of complete spiritual vulnerability I broke down and cried tears I never knew I could feel. My body shuddered with each sob and I heard myself praying. I asked God for help and hope that everything would turn out alright. That’s when I started to believe that these feelings of hopelessness would truly pass if I stopped trying to fix it myself and give it up to the universe.

This is my life. I am the gypsy. I go where the wind carries me and I don’t question it because everything has a purpose and nothing just happens. It’s all part of our own puzzle and I think I had placed another piece in it. This life is so beautiful and dreadful at the same time, but I can’t get enough of it. I feel myself getting stronger everyday and laughing every time I want to cry.

I was sitting on the porch one afternoon during sunset and I was overcome with the relaxing sound of the birds roosting in the pecan trees, squeaking wheels of children riding their bikes and knowing that I had done it: I had pulled myself out of the quicksand with just a toothpick and now there was nothing more to do but turn the page, kick off my shoes and wait for the Texas stars to come out.