Strangers

Written in October, 2005. A personal essay about the impact of strangers.

 I don’t know if this is true for most people, but for me it always seems that the people who make the biggest impact on my life are strangers. There is something about the fact that you will probably never see the person again that allows you to be open and free with them, allows you to listen and take advice. The anonymity of the situation - how they always happen when you least expect it.

            I love walking in the woods. I love being outside. Walking around alone, left to your thoughts and the beauty of nature. There is something special about the woods. They’re secluded, serene, and at the same time feral. There is an untamed beauty about the woods that has always made me feel at home. The musky smell of dirt, the damp and decaying smell of freshly fallen leaves. Crisp scents of bark and moss. And the indefinable and unique smell of the wildlife living there. The fact that everything has been placed there by nature and not man. The music that you hear when you sit alone in the woods, of the wind blowing trees and leaves, a soft and repetitive chorus from the crickets, and the sounds of scurrying animals. This is what I consider beautiful, and something that I have always been able to connect with. So as I learned more about the horrors and pains of the world it was to the woods behind my house that I would retreat to be alone. To be safe from the world. Thus, you can understand my rage at finding someone out there when I needed to be alone. And not only was he in my woods but he was in my tree!

            There was this man, around twenty years old, sitting in my tree. Perched up in the fourth branch from the ground, back against the trunk, with one leg tucked up to his chest and the other dangling off into thin air. He looked like he belonged there, just starring off into space. I was overwhelmed with emotions just then, but mostly I felt betrayed. After all, this was my tree, my place of solitude, my retreat. Here just sitting there, was this man. Between that and the things that had drawn me out here in the first place I felt as though I couldn’t stay. As though I didn’t belong. So, I turned to leave but stepped on a branch, which snapped the man out of his daydream and brought his attention full on me. S**t.

            “Hey there. What are you doing?” He sounded annoyed. What right did he have to sound annoyed?

            “Nothing, just leaving.” I grumbled and turned to leave once again. But this time he didn’t call out to me. Instead he jumped down from the tree and started to follow me.

            “You okay? You look like you’re about to cry.” Oh God, what was this guy’s problem? Who goes after a complete stranger and asks if they’re okay just because they look like they’re going to cry. And I never cry.

            He reached out then and grabbed my arm, and the next thing I knew I was sobbing. My shoulders were shaking, I couldn’t breath, my eyes were so blurry that I couldn’t see straight, and my knees gave out from underneath me. As I sank down to the ground bawling he settled himself on the ground beside me. He was saying something to me but I couldn’t hear him over my sobs. He put his arm around me and started to rock me, which oddly enough just made me cry harder. But I didn’t even know why I was crying.

            After a few minuets I stopped crying, and as soon as I did he took his arms away, which calmed me. “You okay now?”

            “Yea. Sorry about that.” I wiped my eyes sniffling softly. “God, I don’t even know why I did that.” Closing my eyes I rested my head against the tree trunk, taking deep breaths, still trying to return to normal.

            “Don’t worry about it. Everyone needs to let go once in a while.”

            A bitter laugh escaped me, and he looked over at me skeptically. “No. I don’t let go, I don’t break down like that. I’m to much of a control freak to do that. Like I said this was nothing. I don’t even know why it happened.”

            Arching an eyebrow he turned away and said, “Yea sure. Whatever. But it’s still true. Everyone needs to let down their shields and cry, laugh, feel. If you don’t, if you just shut those parts of you out then you start to kill parts of yourself, and eventually you won’t be able to get them back.” He cast me a quick glance then jumped up and started to walk away. “See ya’ later kid.”

            His words shocked me so much that I just sat there. I’m not sure how long I was there but it felt like hours. Everyone needs to break down once in while. Everyone needs to let down their shields and cry, laugh, feel.

            I’ve thought back to the stranger from the woods often, and I am positive that I had never seen him before that incident, or after. And yet he was able to see farther inside  me than anyone else, and he was able to see what was wrong. Maybe he was just really good at reading people. Maybe he was having a similar problem. But no matter the how or why, he saw why I had gone to the woods. Why I had been going for years. To protect myself I had stopped feeling, and was slowly dying. I would go to the woods to mourn the little bits of myself that I had lost. But seeing someone in the woods, knowing that if he saw me he would know why I was in the woods and how pathetic I was. It was that feeling of shame of letting someone else know that heavily guarded secret that tore down my shields and allowed me to feel again.  It was his words that allowed me to understand that feeling wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

            Shutting down my emotions had become such a part of my life that I still do it. Even now when I know what it does to me. But I am getting better. And it was this stranger’s words that allowed me to do it. Those two simple lines have changed my life more than anyone or thing has. And they came from a stranger, like all the answers to life’s mysteries seem to.

Author's Note

Oh my... THis is so old. I was reading it trying to make corrections but I couldn't. I can't believe that I once wrote like this @_@