The Most Beautiful Twilight (Not The Movie)

I am so selfishly heartbroken right now.

I don’t even know what quite to say yet, but I’ll try to articulate as best I can. It had been something like five hours since I found out that I had to leave, and I think I’ve gone through all the stages of grief, and yet there’s something hollow that surrounds the acceptance. Something like when you first get on a rollercoaster and you’re going up and up, and life could not be better, and suddenly you get to the top and there’s that sinking feeling of I should not be here, and then the drop. That’s sort of what the empty feeling is like. And as bad as it is, as unthinkable as it would be and scary and not ideal, a tiny piece of me crouched in the back of my mind is whispering that if the unspeakable happened, if I couldn’t go home, then at least I could be here longer. I didn’t want to speak that into existence, but that is why I say that I am selfishly heartbroken right now. Because it’s not just a heartbreak that mourns for the lost and the unattained; it’s a heartbroken that hisses at the truth and scuttles away grabbing anything that it wants and knocking everything else over in its rush.

What do you do when the one thing that you’ve been hanging on to for years is suddenly taken away from you?

What am I supposed to feel now that the hope that has kept me going for years is finally realized, only to be cut short and vilified?

I suppose I’ll have to hope for something else now.

The trip back was about what you’d expect. I was awake for 26 hours with only one cup of coffee, which honestly I’m more impressed than upset about, and ate two meals. I left in a rush, and I arrived to fear. There was no moment that my heartbeat was slow and relaxed; there was no step that was not a sprint to the unseeable finish line of a comfort that I never wished for. 

My heart is now cleanly split in half, with two names that are written on it, detailing who they belong to. One half says “Austin”. The other says “Angers”. This has always been there, more or less, but now it is more pronounced. The half that says Angers is the loudest right now: it mourns for its loss, it cries and screams and looks at the heartbreak with such a vindicated anger that I would feel guilty to try to silence it. It is not bigger or smaller than the other half, simply the one that is being heard right now. The other half is happy to be home, happy to be somewhere where it is not straining to be comfortable, but it will not say so. It has been shocked into silence. 

There is no heart that is not shocked or screaming right now. There is no fear that is not being selfish right now. We are in a moment of history where the smart thing to do is the worst-case scenario; our cultures, politics, and economies will not survive without evolution.

But would this be so horrible? What a time in history, when the world is brought to its knees, and yet those who used to hold it up can finally be heard. We have the power to take the fear and use it to create a world that cares more for its people, that seeks to prevent harm instead of fight it, that will use its reach to care for everyone instead of waiting to care when it will make them money. We have a real chance to turn this terrifying moment into a future that will help anyone who has been scared long before now.

I do not want to minimize the necessity of being cautious right now. Before anything can happen, we need to get out of the woods here, and that may take a while. But while you are hunkered down, buying toilet paper in bulk for some forsaken reason (seriously, stop that), think about what could be. Trust that the world is broken, yes, but it is also filled with people who want to hope for something better. There is more beauty here than some would like you to see. Hope perforates the shadows, and light can not be overtaken by dark. We will not be the same when we do recover, but that does not mean that we can’t be better.

But for now, I’m going to eat spicy pickles. I can’t tell you how I’ve missed them.