I visit my parents and see my childhood memories. Then my teenage years. Finally young adult moments, college, friends, moments, laughter that use to fill this house. Now empty, quiet. All the children grown up, moved out. Moving through the transition of life.
Every night we’d eat as a family around the dinner table. The same table sits in the same place, five chairs. It’s never moved in thirty five years. The chairs move less and less. Life feels like a vessel of sadness as time passes. Even the joy and happy moments become a tear once looked back upon. All things impossible to hold onto. Simple memories, simple moments, quiet mornings, precious time.
I use to look myself in the mirror when I was a teenager. A feeling would look back at me, angst, discuss, an ick, like an unscratched itch, the grossness of existence. I’d shiver and shake it off, finish combing my hair, make sure I looked good to get a girlfriend. This strange experience, being stuck in a body, the existence of “I”.
Are we reactions to our situations? Ever changing thought? The environments that shape us. A loud voice inside telling us who we are. Is that me? Who thinks these thoughts? Who is the dreamer that dreams at night, lost at the wake of day?
We are all the characters we play out in this theater. Do we choose these roles or fall victim to the drama unfolding around the grand performance? All of us, dancing around the spotlight.
By Charles Denton
