this is how it feels to live a life

Ottawa / Montréal / Boston / New York

In every heart there is something more than a heart and that something is what I actually mean when I say my “heart aches”. It’s that thing more than a heart, within the heart, that aches. And it aches. Lying on that mattress I dragged around five apartments staring up at that ceiling for the last time in the last of those apartments. Because everything is an ending waiting to happen. And nothing seems to be starting. Either ending or waiting to end.

I’m in a U-Haul driving from Ottawa to Montréal to pack up my life and drive it to Boston where I am expected to keep living. Thinking about driving the truck into the Ottawa River. Not because I want to die or drown. But to see if I’ll sink. You see, if I float, that means I’m already dead. Which would make things make more sense. And that’s what I’m trying to do. Arranging and rearranging pieces of my life like the mahogany bedroom set I bought off that dying old guy when I moved into my first apartment in Montréal. He wanted the nice, tall wardrobe back, but I’d already put it in my room. The ornamental piece on the top had already fallen off and broken in the truck. That is to say, I’d made the thing mine.

I don’t drive into the river. Instead I meet up with my friend Paddy for lunch at a diner on the side of the highway. He tells me about his new girlfriend and new job and new lease on life. I smile and mean it. It starts to rain as we walk to the water. Glacier Bay, I think. It takes us a half hour to find a public entrance and by then we were already soaked from the rain. Most of the good skipping stones had been thrown. He asked me if I thought I’d make a lot of money in the future. I said “it seems inevitable”. He thought that was really funny.

My roommates in Montréal helped me pack up my life. My friend’s mom who was visiting asked me if I was excited to move to Boston. My mind went completely empty, but the words “I’ll have to translate myself” just kind of appeared on my lips. And I started bawling. Right there in front of my friend’s mom. She took my photo as I waved goodbye. And sent me a pic of the “welcome home, charlie” my roommate wrote on my wall when I first moved in.

I’m lying on that mattress I’ve dragged all over the city wondering if it’s worth coming back.

Knowing that for the rest of my life when I wake up from nightmares I’ll momentarily believe I’m back in this bedroom.

I’m leaving you. Love is gone.

I get to Boston and my mom meets me at the new place. One of my new roommates has a perfect little kitty named Gervais. He meows a lot cuz he’s got a lot on his mind, I think. He was sent from Saudi Arabia to Quebec in a cardboard box under a commercial airplane. My roommate said he was in that box for almost thirty hours. Poor little guy.

My mom and I spent a few days getting my room ready in Boston. A handyman helped me move some of my heavier furniture and boxes into the house. He looked me in the eyes and said, “Son, you’re strong. You won’t have any problems in your life.” I laughed and thanked him with as much sincerity as I could muster with a hundred pounds of mahogany driving into my palms. When we unpacked my books, hundreds of them, he said, “You’re dangerous.” I didn’t know what to say, but I know what he meant. Sleeping in my little bedroom, I felt not unlike Gervais in his box from Saudi Arabia. But I’m the one who put myself in the box.

I’m on a plane now headed to New York City a day earlier than expected because my brother said some scary shit to my mom. The flight was delayed a few times for reasons I’ll never really understand because they aren’t meant to be understood. I’m lucky to be on the other side of this world. The side that lets me not have to understand these things. The flight took off and immediately everything started shaking.

Turbulence so bad I thought I was gonna puke or die or both. Not sure which first. Until a deep red and then orange grew beneath us like smoke and we were soon above the clouds, above disturbance, and somewhere else entirely. The sun blasting through double plastic windows blinding whatever is left of my vision and nausea which becomes resolution and quiet, quiet peace. Just flight. An aerial view of everything. Even the baby a few rows up has stopped crying.

Every time I close my eyes I see my brother dead. Which is an image I’ve had plastered to my head since I was sixteen. Like a ghost that never goes away. Haunting everything I do. Ensuring nothing feels as good as it should. Sometimes, especially these days, I wish I could chain him to a pole in my basement so he won’t kill himself. Selfish, I know, but if he dies, I die with him. So at least one of us could live.

Sometimes I imagine life as a million little tragedies. But there’s only a few I really fear. I can’t lose you. You’re all I’ve got.

I’m writing things I won’t even say out loud. Because that’s the point, I think. Trying to make something out of all of this. A story, a poem, whatever. I’m living on the edge.

It’s strange missing a place you chose to leave. It makes more sense to miss people. The ones who dot your life. But places are something else entirely. You can talk about them like you do people, but ultimately, a place is a place. And a person is a person. And time is that other thing that always goes. Like how places remain even when you close your eyes. And people too. An infinite continuity of self consciousnesses. However many billion people, all looking at themselves in the mirror and seeing someone else. Every cab makes me feel like I’m going to throw up now. I white knuckled the armrest on the plane earlier. I miss the past. How do I reach it?

How do I know I’m not dreaming? And if I am, how do I stop? When I wake up, I want to be with you. Wherever you are. Because I love you with everything I’ve got. In this scene of my life, the camera pans out and shows the audience that everything they’ve seen so far has actually been a reflection in a mirror.

Talked to my sister on the phone earlier about trauma. How everything makes us shake. Our heartbeats race the moment our dad calls unexpectedly. Cuz we both know one day the dream will be over. Or maybe expose itself as the nightmare it’s always been. And the Freddie Krueger of our lives will crawl out into the real world. That thing we’re living. And he’ll say, “This is how it feels to live a life.”

This is how it feels to live a life. This is how it feels to live a life. This is how it feels to live a life. This is how it feels to live a life.