I started the evening like almost every other. It had been a long day of a lot of nothingness and needed to unwind. I drew a bath and poured a glass of wine. After selecting the perfect classical meditation music, I sunk into the scorching hot water. I like to have the water so hot it turns my skin red. Something about it burns the anxieties of the day away.
After settling in, I took a deep breath and watched the steam rise up from the water. Disappointments of the day swirled in my mind. I had missed a meeting, one that I set up. (Just how scattered can someone be to manage to do that?) My boss wasn't pleased, and I had already been screwing up little things for sometime. I knew that one slip meant I had no room to mess up again and that I had to be on my game. Problem was I just didn't have any energy to fix it, and hadn't for quite some time. So I laid back and let the water seep into my hair as the smell of magnolias filled the tiny bathroom.
The room itself is nothing to rave about. It's the standard cookie-cutter bathroom with a cramped bathtub that doubles as a shower. (Fortunately I'm small so I can stretch out in it fairly well.) It's the hall bath, so it doesn't get used much except for the few meditative moments me and my dog share after I've had a rough day. Fae, my corgi, was laying on the rug, attentively watching me. She knew I was stressed. That's the interesting thing about dogs; they can feel your emotions. As an empath myself I think that's why I have always been drawn to animals, dogs in particular. They care, when the rest of the world doesn't.
Since she couldn't see me anymore, Fae perched up on the side of the bath to lick my arm. For her, bath time is not the most enjoyable experience so she regularly checks on me like this. She also likes the interesting flavors and smells that come from the minerals and essential oils I soak in. A ritual to try to help me keep my last strand of sanity intact so I don't launch into tears. Something that had been a common occurrence over the past few weeks. Whoever decided that a girl's life was going to be so tumultuous at the age of 25 should really be forced to go through it themself.
Fae's warm tongue on my elbow caught my attention and I scratched her behind the ears. She settled on the rug next to the cool tub. I took a sip of wine and watched her. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the flickering flame from one of the candles. It drew me in. As a child I had always enjoyed watching the flames of a bonfire or candle dance. It was entrancing and meditative.
As I watched the flame I thought it to be dancing to the rhythm of the Bach sonata that was softly playing through the speaker. The wick looked like a fire nymph, trapped in the flame, dancing along. The longer I watched, the more the chaos from the day faded to the background, yet still remaining ever present in it's subdued state.
I smiled at the unique dance, and mused about how I could attack the issues from work. I was in a job that left a lot to be desired. I missed the days that I began in the office. No responsibility and all of the energy and passion in the world. "Wouldn't it be nice to have that again?" As I muttered this to myself I hadn't noticed that the flame had changed. The spritely nymph in the flame had grown stationary, stagnant even. The charred outside of the wax was burnt to a solid black as the flame consumed it.
It intrigued me. As the water was slowly cooling, and the flame's dance seemed to follow my emotions, I sat transfixed, unmoving. I longed for the free-wielding passion of the fire, but felt as if I was the burnt out wick. Not felt.... I was burnt out, and now even my candles were mocking me. But I still couldn't tear my eyes away.
The flame seem all-consuming for the little nymph, trapped and inescapable. Slowly wearing it down to a tiny nub of nonexistence. But as I watched, I realized the fire and the nymph co-exist. They both needed each-other. The flame was a friend: passion personified. She tugged and pulled at the wick trying to get it to dance along. To move at any cost. It was a thrashing motion of pain and exhaustion, but the wick still wouldn't yield.
The flame had a name, her name was Passion. Properly harnessed by the wick they danced together in beauty. As the wick grew cold she pulled at it, enticing it to dance. The wick giving up was burned down by Passion, and the flame's beauty diminished when the wick fought against her efforts, causing her to thrash around her glass prison.
At some point the music had stopped. I didn't know how much time had passed. The water was now slightly cooler than luke-warm. I watched Fae dream about chasing squirrels as I drank the last sip of wine. Nothing was different. The same small bathroom. Same candles. Same stressors from before. But something had changed. The flame had gone back to the normal sputtering and flickering as the candle had burnt down so low.
As I grabbed a towel I wondered, "Maybe it was a nymph." Wouldn't surprise me from all the stories my Irish Grandma used to tell me about fairies. Now grown however, I was a rational adult. The interesting display was most likely my exhaustion seeping through. I couldn't shake a weird feeling though. I wasn't relaxed, but I wasn't as stressed from the day anymore. It was as if the candle put on a show for me. Explaining to me the different options that were laid out before me. I realized in my current state passion was wearing me down. As I began to fight becoming more and more burnt out, it's beauty began to fade, and I was no longer interested in what it had to offer. Both states to me are extraordinarily depressing.
I scooped up Fae and headed to my bedroom. I crawled in bed and she snuggled against my legs. I started drifting to sleep, dreaming of dancing flames and fire nymphs. And in those dreams, my heart made the decision to learn to dance again.
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