oloriel | Meditations

There was a meditation practice thing we once did, in the olden days, when I regularly went to church service.
Before I was old enough to join the dreadfully boring adult group, and after I was old enough to leave the easy-peasy kid's group.
We were to imagine ourselves in nondescript surroundings, without light or something to orientate by except by the land and the stars. (We were to imagine ourselves in the dead of night). We were to visualize ourselves all alone.

I always ended up in an Arctic environment: Nothing but ice and snow around me. But the stars, the pale white cold stars, were always very bright: Because they were the only source of light, and because they were reflected easily by the white surface around me. It was cold, but at the same time, that made the air crisp and clean, pure, unpolluted.
Despite the cold and crispness, despite the loneliness, I felt different from the others doing the same exercise: The others would report how they felt abandoned, afraid, alone: How they longed for company and bright light: How the felt utterly desperate in that environment, which, usually was far less hostile than my arctic icefield. Not I. I felt safe. Alone, yes, but safe: All the more safe for being alone. I was in the cold, in a desert of ice and snow, but the stars were reflected, and reinforced, and reassuring.

We did that meditation exercise in a time when I was being mobbed for being different, when I had few friends and more antagonists, where I was so desperate for acceptance that anyone who did so much as smile at me was my friend, when I knew that I would never be able to satisfy people. That was why I felt happy in the dark, the cold, the solitude. It was safe, more safe than light and warmth and company could ever be. It was only me, me and the darkness, and I knew myself and didn't fear the darkness, for I knew that it was never absolute.

Sometimes, today, I still feel that way. Sometimes, visualizing happiness, I get the image I had back then: Myself, wrapped in nothing but a blanket, with no light but the stars high above - but more stars than one single sky could hold - and that is the only way, the only single way that I could ever be content. Me. Cold. The stars.

I realized today, for the first time, just why it is that my family expects me to finish studying and become useful (at least), rich (at best) and famous.
This year - in four months and one week - I will be 23 years old.
In the year my mother turned 23, she not only finished her studies magna cum laude, but also did her doctorate.
Of course, I am expected to do her proud and do the same. Instead, the only thing I manage to accomplish in this year of turning 23, after seven semesters of studying, is finishing my intermediate exam.

But I am not my mother. It will take me at least two more years to finish even one of my subjects. And unlike my mother, who knew that she wanted to be a medical doctor, and whose course of studies was neatly structured and clearly organised, I have no idea whatsoever to do with myself, my interests, my life. Right now, I am hanging in a vaccuum. Right now, I feel more lonely and in the dark than I ever felt when visualizing myself on my knees in the ice, with one single blanket and the stars. Right now, I understand that passing or not passing an exam is altogether meaningless, because it doesn't guide me either way.

Right now, I long for the simplicity of a life where everything has been preordained.

Sometimes, I miss the grinding ice and the cold stars. Today I am blinded by lights that I cannot trust, in a land of intellectual achievement. I miss the simplicity of the illusions of my adolescence. I miss the clarity of feeling that the odd girl, visualizing herself in the snow under the stars, felt so keenly. I miss a feeling of purpose, or safety.

Of course I know that I will find my way. I will, because I have no other choice. I will, because it's only natural, because it is my life, because I am not living it for anyone but myself.

But I remember the snow and ice and stars. And I remember that I didn't dare to tell others how I felt after that exercise, because the others would report how they felt horrible, painfully abandoned, desperately longing for others, whereas I would feel, just for the brief time of the exercise, just for a few minutes, safe. Not in spite of being alone and in the dark and cold, but because of being alone and in the dark and cold. It was me. I knew myself. I was safe. I was alone, but alive.

And there always, always were stars.