Mirrors

I emerged from the train station tonight looking around me as though I had suddenly been caught in a daze. King's Cross was standing tall in the night, its red brick gown detached from the night sky unfolding behind it. I blinked, uncertain. Had I really been anywhere at all? It was only yesterday that I was standing at right about the same spot, with the same red brick façade greeting me. So yes, for a split second I wondered: had I really been anywhere at all?

Old feelings and thoughts continued their stirring inside me, untamed waves crashing against my head and heart over and over again. In spite of my best efforts, I had been dragged back into the past through no fault of my own... or was it? It's hard to say. I remember feeling sad in the wake of my silent cousin's departure, and then I remember the sadness morphing into nostalgia, and before I knew it I found myself frantically looking for old journals and diaries. The next thing I remember doing is sit at my desk to read these relics of mine written so many years ago. Shortly after I started reading, I found myself throwing them away from me, feeling deeply unsettled.

Who was this girl whose thoughts I was reading? What scared me wasn't a feeling of detachment from who I was back then - in many ways I wish it were the case, that what spooked me was not being able to relate anymore... but that wasn't the case at all, on the contrary. Reading myself back felt like... staring at unfolding patterns that remain with me to this very day... making me who I am today.

I had received a text from an old friend who has moved away from London a long time ago. We met when I had just turned 21 and she had just turned 19. She had just started her first year at university and I was finishing my last year, but we hadn't met at university. We'd met on a forum for people who suffered from various mental afflictions, from depression to food issues to wanting to commit suicide. On that forum were people from all ages, although teenagers and young adults seemed to form a majority, as did the female ratio versus male. What we all liked about it was the freedom to express as much of our dark thoughts as we felt the need to, and no one was going to judge or lecture you. We were all 'in the same boat', so to speak, and we could relate. Beyond the differing circumstances, ages and stories lay the same common afflictions. And one day this girl and I decided to meet. We both lived in the same city, so we met up in a Starbucks near her halls and we just instantly 'clicked'.

It wasn't long before she got worse and had to leave the city, though, and I remember feeling that same old, painful twitch in the heart when she announced she had to leave - why did people I met in life and allowed myself to care about, always had to leave prematurely? It was always Distance. They always had to 'move'. I've lost count of how many people have entered my life and disappeared out of it the moment I started caring.

Anyway... we met up again this weekend, and it was as though we'd never left each other's side. I wondered some more about why it was that people I cared about were invariably taken away from me by distance, and I felt like concluding that maybe, just maybe, it was better that way - even if it rarely feels better.

Is there such a thing as only being able to be friends with people from a distance? Is there such a thing as better preservation of friendship, perhaps even love, so long as it is kept away from us for the most part?

I couldn't say.

I spent last night sitting on her bed listening to her singing as she played the guitar and then I asked her to play the violin for me. She got up, picked up the violin case, opened it before me and spent some time tuning it. And then she started playing... giggling and wincing every time she missed the odd note. We'd been sipping wine and we'd also been smoking. She then reverted back to playing the guitar and singing... and there I was, nodding my head in rhythm with the wonderful acoustic sound, wishing so much it would never stop.

Later on, her boyfriend came home and I discovered that he was a painter. They showed me pictures of his paintings and I was struck by how talented the man was... I'd never cared about abstract painting before, but suddenly the fusion of colours, the odd patterns and forms drowning in pools of colours... all of it was speaking to me now. At that point I wasn't sure if it was the smoking that had affected me as I could have sworn I didn't feel any 'different'.

But then, as we sat at the table eating dinner and I was trying out vegan curry for the first time, we somehow ended up on the topic of 'mirrors', asking one another whether we'd noticed how our reflection never seems to look quite the same as our person 'seen' in real life. And suddenly the thought that we never actually get to see ourselves but only a mirror image or reflection at best struck me... or perhaps what really struck me was the fact that we ultimately get to see others better than we could ever see our own self...

When we stare at our own reflection - the only way we have to 'see' ourselves even through pictures - what we're really staring at is a distorted version of ourselves, leaving only other people with the ability to see the original version, if you like. And so it is that we probably have more of a shot at making sense of others rather than our own selves.

Nothing seems to matter anymore, nothing has a point, all is futile. The sky is dark and dull even at its bluest. The wind is harsh, cold, venimous, even when scarse. Time is bloody, rutheless, even when ignored. Food is poison, evil, even when avoided. People are hurtful savages, even when caring and trying to be kind. Dreams are torture even though I chase after them relentlessly. (18/09/2006)