Thank God, and I'm Free

2011

Remember that fall night when we parted beneath the tree at one corner of campus? We agreed to meet again in a few days; we both knew that it was to conclude our two-part break up, but for some reason we pretended it wasn’t. Maybe because your parents were coming to town. Though we were in perfect unspoken agreement (for the first time in a while), it marked the moment you weren’t with me any longer. So of course you weren’t there when I stood in warm sunlight in that exact spot much afterward and saw that lightning had shattered the tree. I immediately asked my roommate to take my picture, arms straight up, face squinched into a victory grin toward the sun.

Here’s why: another time walking under this tree I’d reflected that we are never in the same place twice because the earth is hurtling through the universe at a bajillion miles an hour (or whatever the exact figure is). So when I saw the stump, tall and jagged, with a sudden burst of joy I remembered this was true, knew I wasn’t going to be stuck in the same place, or stuck on you, that I couldn’t be even if I tried because time wouldn’t let me. It would keep pushing new sights and experiences into my face all the time, even if I had grown roots and taken up residence at that corner. Seasons would come and go, snow would land on my face and hair, melt and freeze into ice and disappear and come back in a cycle until spring. The ground next to me would be a construction site for an impossibly long time, then be inlaid with rows of brick and one day become a parking lot that pedestrians would mostly use as a shortcut to avoid the corner. I’d watch new batches of students hustle by me to lunch or class or dates or studying or something; the world spinning madly on. But people are kind and surprising, and surely someone would notice me and ask a question. Each time I told my story, I’d be processing it further, loosening the pain and regret deep-sunk into my spirit like an axe. Each time I told my story, I’d be making a copy of it, a weak wordy summary instead of the heavy and sharp remembering. And each time I made a copy, it would be a copy of the prior copy, not the original. It would get lighter and lighter until I could barely make out what it said at all, barely remember the girl who said all those things the first time and then summarized them again and again. She used to be me, but now she’s no one and nowhere. Her existence has been dispersed entirely, unrecoverable. Thank God, and I’m free. The tree as we knew it is gone, replaced by a stump, above which is hovering the ghost of the upper half of a tall trunk with flowing branches and leaves that can’t catch snow or stop rain because they are weightless and invisible, casting no shadows at all.