Ella's Rising

She could not remember ever being any different than she was right now. Maybe that was the way it was, but maybe not. All she knew ws that she wasn't in great shape right now. She hesitated to speak or write, fearful that something she wanted to conceal would come spilling forth and betray her. The sun shone, and every corner of the environment seemed to be illuminated with bright light. In a way, the sunshine was an affront to her psyche; like salt in an open wound.


The gentle melancholy covered her now like a soft cloak, but threatened to grow heavy and make even breathing difficult. It was familiar, though not comforting. The present melancholy was bearable, and she was, to a point, comfortable with it in the sense that she could function with its presence. The heavier cloak seemed to tear into her spirit like claws; tearing her into fragments of her former self.


Memories of the years gone past flooded her mind again. The scenes of classroom tears where she would melt and be gripped by fear that kept her frozen in the chair. The desk and the chair would be wet, and yet she could not bear to move on her own. Inevitably, the bewildered teacher would either call the guidance counselor or bring her down to the counselor's office themselves. Whispers of ridicule swarmed around and inside her head to terrorize her. Classmates were often dismissive and figured that she was trying to get out of doing any work. A shield went up around her and she tried to hide within herself from the criticisms. There was nowhere else to go. Where could she be alone and just purge the sadness from her spirit? If she knew, she would certainly try to avoid making such a spectacle of herself.


Writing provided an outlet for her discomfort, but it came at a price. She had not been in a good frame of mind when she wrote the notes, and the impact they had was not good, either. She wrote a few that were red-flags for self-injury, and was called up on the carpet for them. In a way, she could understand what the problem was. However, there were those moments that she didn't know what else to do to send up the necessary smoke signals to yell out to someone that she was not going to be able to weather the tempests much longer. Her parents didn't seem to really understand that she was really lost. Their shouts of concern and the anger she felt from that concern were discouraging.


Writing was the only way she let out some of the pressure she felt inside. It also caused some problems when she wrote the contents of her soul.


These scenes had been happening in some form or another for years. When she was single, she was able to get away by herself more often and just let the inner poison drain out of her. She could hardly stand when she had been weeping for an extended time, but then there was an eerie peace that surrounded her afterwards. In a way, she had become addicted to that surreal calmness of spirit.


Married now, the days formed themselves around her husband and two children. They had needs, too. Dinners needed to be cooked, laundry needed to be done, and bills needed to be paid. The household had to be organized to promote some semblance of sanity for the family as a whole, and that in itself was enough to keep her busy. She liked her life on one level. The level that was normal and that encircled her in a realm of family and love was a work of art in progress.


The level she tried to keep hidden was the zone that was giving her grief now. She had managed to bring the kids to her mom's house for the afternoon. It was summertime, and the kids were out of school. Both grandparents and children were happy to spend some time together anyway. It worked out for her to be able to try and heal up from the latest assault.
She loved the beach when she could find some shade. It was even better if she could find a park that had a beach connected to it so that both green grass and ocean were offered. Today she had found that alcove of respite that would enable her to drain the familiar poison off so that she could try to get rid of it.


Ella had purposed in her heart to not take her own life. She wanted to live and she was going to live, and that was that. She would not give her enemy the satisfaction of taking her down for good. The tenacity that had brought her to the edge of 40 was going to have to keep working for her. It was a gift she needed intimately.


There were those times that she didn't think that she was going to make it out of another abyss. These were the times that she wrote those notes to her classmate.
These were the times that she just melted into a shell and displaced her humanity in the name of relief. It was one of these times that she found the straight pin and made a start of what could have been the beginning of the end. It never went any further in the natural, though it continued in the mental realm.


She pulled herself back to the present day and saw the trees swaying their leaves back and forth in the light wind around them both. Ella felt kissed by heaven when she felt the wind on her face, and sent up a prayer of thanksgiving to her God. He had promised never to leave her or forsake her. She took that on faith, as she could not feel that presence as she sat in her inner darkness. Right now, she just wanted to fade into oblivion. She was guilt-ridden for even thinking such foolishness, and felt also that her weakness was embarassing. She wanted to hide this from people, to keep them from knowing that she was not in her right mind. They had nothing to fear from her, as she did not hold anyone else responsible for the present or past unpleasantness. Still, there was nowhere else to go, and she felt penned in like a caged animal by the demands of her life.


Ella would be able to shift gears soon so that she could go back to her car and head toward her parents' house to pick up the kids. The real world was waiting for her, and it was a welcome change. She told herself that this inner world was not real, and that was a part of what kept her going. The real world was what was happening around her; with her family, her church, and the rest of the world as she understood it. It didn't actually make a lot of sense sometimes because it was real when the inside hurts and hauntings spilled out into becoming real. She wanted to hide. Where could she hide? There seemed to be people everywhere, and there was nowhere else to go.


She heard a car horn in the distance. She looked at her watch and saw it was already 4:30 in the afternoon. She would live another day, and continue to heal up from the cloak and its' claws. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" she thought. The verses would come to her now and whisper words of peace and hope. They were real; as real as anything that ever existed. Ella arose and headed towards the parking lot. She missed her kids, her husband, and those little chocolate truffles in the drug store that came in a black wrapper. God would be faithful, and she would rise again.