The Girl in the Window

A short piece about the consuming thoughts of a young girl stuck inside her head.

I am the girl in the window. Sitting perched upon this seat with the cool glass supporting my tired body. I look out into the darkness of the cool night at the twinkling lights of the city just beyond the tops of the asphalt buildings and the bare trees of winter. I am watching the world go by before my sapphire eyes, each moment slightly different than the one before. I hear the jumbled sounds of this urban city floating up on the chilled air into the warmth of my room, my sanctuary. Each sound brings to mind a different scene of my exhausted life. I am a young woman, I have seen less years pass than most of this earth yet I see so much life in the world around me. I am smoking a cigarette and the smell of its stale smoke wafts around me like silent reminders of all that I am missing.

The white washed walls of this undersized room seem so empty to me, even with the minimalist decorations I have plastered them with: There are black and white pictures of Andy Warhol and his ingenious yet simple quotations, photographs taken through the lens of my own camera and through my own eyes, and my favorite sayings from the most eclectic sources, each has a profound meaning to my existence in some small way. Whenever people enter this room they remark about how it resembles a prison, a cave, a dungeon of sorts but I don’t see it. All I see is my home, the small fifteen by ten space that I can call my own. I don’t need much room; I don’t need much at all to be honest. I’m a simple person on the outside, and I suppose I live my life that way because of all the complexities that I hide on the inside. I live alone. I’ve convinced myself time and time again that this is only because I have such difficult health problems but sometimes I cannot help but be truthful with myself. I don’t live alone because of that, its because all I want is to escape into myself and hide from the world. I don’t know when I became this person who is so scared of human interaction. I used to have such a wonderful and outgoing personality and I have only seen that fade as the years have past. At times I think its because I have merely grown up and removed the rose colored glasses from my eyes and have begun to see the world for what it truly is. But I realize again that I am lying to myself in hopes that I just might believe it and start to feel better. I have doomed myself to this life, this rut that I have been in for way to long, way too many years. I look at myself in the mirror hang on the wall across from the windowsill I’m seated on and the girl in the reflection looks unbelievably vague.  Vague. I never thought I would describe myself with this word. I would much rather look sad or angry or even devastated rather than vague. I see the whole world moving, when I am standing still.

Sometimes I feel this overwhelming sense of uncertainty. I sometimes hear the sound of a quiet piano playing somber chords or of a low voice humming solemnly in my mind. I wish I could escape this music sometimes but it has become almost as familiar to me as silence. As the melody drifts through my mind like the constant stream of whispered lyrical words I seem to narrate my life with, I find myself feeling more and more numb. The vagueness becomes overpowering and I cannot figure out how to turn it off. I search and search for the off switch. Its like I’m searching for a light in this dark life. It’s like I’m searching for a hand to pull me up and out of this feeling, this existence into the real world, and into the person I’m meant to be. I feel lost along a path I don’t know how to walk. So I run wherever my tired legs will take me. I run from every feeling and everything in my life. Because feeling numb and feeling lonely is so much easier for me to understand. I am searching for a hand to hold, as I grow old. I am searching for something more in this life. This cycle I live in exhausts me. I feel like a rodent running on a wheel, never getting anywhere but running like I have a purpose, running like there is a finish line somewhere, someplace in the future.

I sometimes wish that I had the courage to leave this solitude behind me and immerse myself into the vibrant world that carries on outside my window. But I have become the girl who simply watches. Observes the tests and trials of all those who flood my life. I am torn between observation and immersion. I sometimes feel as though I am missing out on all the greatness of life that happens outside this place. I am alone far more than I should be. But I enjoy the silence. It allows me to reflect and to create beautiful words to describe what I no longer have the strength to convey anymore. A written explanation for exactly why I am the way I am. A written way to tell myself and anyone willing to read my words what I cannot say out loud.  I am a distant figure to people in my life, caught up in my own internal life, too scared to place emphasis on the external.  But who am I to know what is right and wrong for me. If I simply stood up from this watch tower of mine I might experience a life changing event that could put all of my doubts to rest and give me answers to my constantly nagging questions. I always say that I am this way because I chose to be, because it makes me a richer more deep person but this is another lie. I’m this way because I am afraid. I am afraid of heartache and disappointment. I’m afraid of happiness the most. I’m so scared to let myself be happy because on some self-destructive level I enjoy being unhappy. But if I leave this spot will I miss these quiet moments of reflection that I do so crave. These quiet moments that allow me to breathe and to think and to experience each emotion that overwhelms me and escape the self-consciousness and self-critic that I dote upon myself. I tire of this game of tug of war that the angel and devil sitting on my shoulders are always engaged in.

My cigarette has burned down to the filter and my lungs are filled with heavy smoke but my anxiety has not retreated yet. So I pull another from my dwindling pack and place it between my frowning lips. The strike of my lighter sends a flickering light into the darkness of my room, bouncing off the walls like tiny fairies dancing in a dream. The first pull of it sends me reeling and the rush of the nicotine pumps through my veins like adrenaline and seeps into the blackened sides of my lungs. I know how terrible this habit is, but sometimes I get so worked up, so anxious and depressed that this food for the nicotine monster is the only thing that relaxes me and pulls me from my fog, if only for a few minutes. I bathe in the smoke like it was scalding water, almost like it could cleanse me of my sins and my sadness, but I know it cannot. It is only another lie that I tell myself so that I may be happy. It is nothing but another distraction from the real problem at hand. The real problem, If only I could put my finger on it, but it seems just out of my reach.  Distraction seems to be my vice these days. I find ways to ignore my gloom, to fight of the constant sting of depression in the pit of my stomach.

Each day when I gaze into the mirror I see a beautiful sullen face: a face worn with guilt, burden, and pure sorrow.  Although I feel beautiful on the outside I am scared. I am afraid that I have become far too good at painting on this mask of a life I do not actually lead. A façade of happiness built solely upon a desperately unsatisfactory life. I know that it is no one’s fault but my own that I find so little joy in life anymore. The blame rests upon my shoulders alone. I am never satisfied, always looking for something more, something that is undoubtedly missing from my existence. I know not if this piece to my unfinished puzzle will ever come, or if it really even exists but I cannot help but search for it. Some say that the beauty of life is finding the joy in the little things. I wish that were as easy as it is made out to be. The fact is I feel as though I am drowning in a sea of happy swimmers. I’m sure that I am not the only one who feels this unreasonable and unwarranted pain. A somber cloud seems to follow me even in the brightest sunlight. I crave those few moments of peaceful happiness I seem to be afforded. I crave that blissfully content existence that people seem to lead.

Every time I sit here I am reminded of the person I could be. I am reminded of the happiness I used to lead and the innocent restlessness I once felt in my youth. But as my blonde locks faded to dark as I grew in age I began to feel a different kind of restlessness. I began to feel a sadness that would soon overtake my soul and lead me down a path that I had no desire to journey upon. This restlessness turned into depression, which turned into anxiety, which then turned into numbness. I forget the last time I felt an emotion with such clarity and intensity as when I was young. Now I either feel overwhelming sadness or nothing at all.  It is not the feelings of sadness that brings worry to my mind, it is the numbness. This is the scariest part of my existence. The complete lack of feeling reverberates through my soul and turns me into this blank, expressionless, bottomless pit of nothing.

I dream about digging my feet into the white sand beaches of some tropical island and throwing down the cool bite of a cocktail. I wonder if I would even feel happy in a moment like this, is it possible? Has the realistic possibility of happiness escaped my grasp completely like a small child chasing after a balloon that has floated out of the clasp of their hand into the pale blue sky? I wonder if happiness is a privilege or ability… an ability that I simply do not possess. Sometimes I think that I worry too much about the future, and what will come of my life. I wish I were one of those people who could focus on the moment and not the ones to come. I am a dreamer. Always with my head in the clouds and floating in a fantasy that is not reality.  I think too much. And as I have gotten older writing as been the only thing to keep me sane.

So I write to escape the sadness. I write to escape the anxiety. I write to escape the bitterness of my life. And sometimes, only sometimes I write because I am happy. So I sit here and write as I watch the world pass a few stories below me. I write about the cool night air and the sounds of the city. I write about the silence that encompasses these sounds. I write about the loves or sometimes lack there of in my life. I write about the hate, the sorrow, and the anger. I write about everything and nothing at the same time. I pull words from my soul that seems to be overflowing with life that cannot translate to reality for me. I write the words that I most often do not have the strength to speak out loud. I write about the past and the future but most often, the present.

Author's Note

let me know if you find any typos!