Part 26: A Balance Place

Oh God, hold me now
Oh Lord, hold me now
There's no other man who could raise the dead
So do what you can to anoint my head

Oh God, where are You now?
Oh Lord, say somehow
The devil is hard on my face again
The world is a hundred to one again

- Sufjan Stevens

...

Life is difficult. It's common knowledge; there is no profound truth or revelation I have beyond that. But when life gets hard, you need a pillar, a support system, a friend you can rely on and who can help pull you up out of it.

Well, my life just got hard.

"I've lasted this long, but I'm not sure how much longer I can do it. I'm exhausted. I'm apathetic. I just want to sleep." I had spent an hour crying at work, alone in my cubicle, for no real reason other than the overwhelming depression that I felt. Evans agreed to meet me at our favorite cafe once again.

"Oh, pretty girl," Evans teased, as he pushed my hair out of my eyes, "don't be so worried. Your talents will support you and your being you will make your own support. You'll be alright."

"Thank you. I'm not worried for me, though."

"What do you mean?" He asked.

"I can't stand disappointing and hurting other people. I know I'd survive, probably with ease."

"Your situation presents a bit of a problem. I mean, you don't really care about the marriage, and that's a difficult place to be. You care about what it means," he stated. "You don't relate it to anything personal, instead, you're functioning in a legally binding version of what I typically have with relationships; you appreciate what it means, but aren't sure that the person whom you've bound yourself to is the one you should have."

I sat there, without a response.

Evans had come over to hang out with me the night before. We had sat in my living room, chatting online with my friends, playing video games on my Nintendo Wii, and attempting to solve wooden mind puzzles that I had received from Adam's uncle.

"It was interesting watching you do those puzzles last night," Evans finally told me.

I looked at him with a puzzled look on my face. "Why?"

"Because."

"Because I'm awful at them?" I mused.

He laughed, "No. Not at all. But in your attempts to help your friends, and not being able to sleep over their problems... You made some comment that really stuck out to me. The things you do for others and the things you will subject yourself to for the sake of others — your heart — you deny for yourself."

"Because I have a guilty conscience. I feel like I would be acting selfish," I answered. "It might not be true, but it's still how I feel. It's as if my responsibility takes precedence over myself and the state that I'm in."

"Sure, I understand." He paused. "It was also interesting to watch you play Warioware on the Wii, and how that contrasts with you and Adam and your real-life interaction.

"He finds the easiest way to win the game, while you take so much time to play the game, to put the controller on your head, to get into it. You take your time to do so much for other people — you bought my dinner, you love to get games that get people involved and not play solo — that is an amazing quality. But you have to have the balance, or like that quote says, it will eat you alive.

"Nic, you have an amazing heart. But a heart that gives out all the blood to the body around it still needs to get that blood back in order to pump it back out again. The heart isn't selfish; it's just a necessary cycle."

I looked away as I slumped into my seat. "Can't I just disappear? Run away? Die? I'd even take death."

He sighed, amused, "Everything but death is a valid option."

We sat in silence for a moment as we watched the people around us walk by and make small talk with each other.

"I always think that if I was apathetic enough to die," he said, finally. "it's at that point that I would then be the most free to really pursue all the goals and desires in my heart, because at that point, what else do I have to lose? Death, however, leaves no option and therefore is not an option."

I continued to avoid his eyes, but mostly because I knew he was right.

"Nic, I believe that people can change their lives if they want to."