Hello everyone, hope you're all well!
I wanted to share this piece with you because I'm not sure it'll ever go anywhere, but I've been super busy lately and haven't had time to write a blog post from scratch. But also, I wanna share my writing! That's what this blog is for.
I don't often write creative non-fiction, but I write from the heart when I do. This story is about a fight I had with an ex online friend before my birthday. I was so upset with them that I had to leave my computer and the house to calm down. This was really the turning point when I realized I couldn't be friends with this person any longer. I will say, I made a few mistakes after this out of anger, anxiety, fear, and being a human. I'm not perfect, and not placing any blame. But they also makes mistakes for the same reasons. But by March, I had to be the one to say: "I can't do this anymore, I'm leaving." It really blew up between our friends, since I ran a Discord server with about 80 or so members. I had no intent to leave the server forever, but I had planned to take a break and leave for a while. However, my ex's friends started to bully me and really shun me from using the space I'd created ever again. One started calling me a villain too, which was overly dramatic and uncalled for, honestly. They didn't really know the situation, as I'd been friends with my ex friend for 8 years. We'd met in person four times, they'd really helped me get through Covid depression, but last year, they just turned sour, in a way. I remember venting to some other friends about it, and one said something along the lines of "people don't get this bad overnight." For me, that was the moment I realized they'd gone sour for a while, and that I'd already grieved the person I once knew.
I wanted to write about the day I realized all of this for a writing contest at school. I sent it in along with a few other pieces, and sadly won nothing. But I figured it couldn't hurt to revise it and share it for you as well. Here without further ado, here's a piece that's never been workshopped and seen by maybe 6 people: Cold and the Canal
Gently turning right, I heard “Out of Time” start to finish. Jim Carey let me know I’d soon be healed, forgiven, refreshed, and freed from all trauma, pain, guilt, and shame. I parked in the empty lot as he reassured me that there were still thirty minutes of slow tracks on 103.5 Dawn FM. I pulled the key from the ignition, saving those next thirty minutes for the short drive home.
I knew it was only a CD, but I hoped Carey was right.
I stepped out of the Civic and mentally thanked him for getting me to the park safely. Then I laughed, realizing I was turning my car into a person. No, my Civic was not alive. But I felt safe driving alone in my car, where I was free from judging eyes. I finally understood people who were attached to their cars, and decided to embrace it. I locked the doors and started walking.
Cold wind bit at my fingertips because I’d forgotten gloves. That was fine though. I needed the fresh air. Stepping foot on the gravel trail, I listened to my feet crunch the small rocks, and the birds singing their winter songs. It was quieter than when I came in the summer, less birds were out and less critters were scattering around. The quiet struck my loneliness on the head, making me feel even more isolated. I shoved my hands into my pockets. Her cold words repeated in my mind.
What words they were, I’ve already forgotten. I could read those texts front and back to recount them here, but it doesn’t matter what was said. They were eaten by worse words. Words insulting the core of who I am. Words that forced me to censor the writing that gives me purpose. Words that drove me from my own community. Words that took me from the people I cared for most.
I was villainized by her friends, as if I were evil to be defeated. Banished by those who deceived me.
But for those thirty minutes I walked alone. There was not another soul on the trial. Her voice would enter my mind, whispering red flags but I pushed her aside. I was alone with the Earth.
I breathed the inhospitable winter air. It was only 32° that day, but it felt like -100° to me. I’d hastily grabbed my faux leather jacket and drove off. I was in a hurry to get away from the computer, where she lived. I was cold, and I’d done it to myself. “What else have you done to yourself?” the demon in my head asked.
At first I thought it’d stolen her voice, but the truth was much worse. I’d been invited to her pity parties, and the parasites attending had taken residence in my mind. I’d started to think like her, and I couldn’t let myself do that.
I looked at the ground, at the Erie Canal, at the gray-blue sky, anything to keep my mind distracted. I could’ve walked down into the canal if I had felt brave, it was still drained for the winter.
I focused on the empty space and filled it with the memory of walking into its emptiness with my father. My mother was sick and couldn’t join us on the walk. I recorded my father walking into the empty canal like a home video. I wanted to be just like my late grandmother, documenting everything on camera. My father asked me to join him and I did. I remember thinking the water would suddenly come flooding over us, and hoping the fish were alright. We certainly weren't supposed to be down there, but we rebelled just a little. My mother found the video charming, the bravery of a daughter and father.
But I wasn’t brave enough to walk into the emptiness that day. I’d used my bravery trying to communicate with a barbed wire fence.
I heard a crack, and jumped to see if someone was on the trail with me. The parking lot had been empty, who would come on a cold January day?
Me, that’s who.
I had stepped on a twig, scaring myself half to death. I took another deep breath, letting the frigid air bite my lungs. I was tense, too busy thinking of the reply I had to make. I was here to clear my mind, so I pushed my anxiety into the empty of the canal. I visualized it being swept away by a flood of water. The cold January air urged me forward, and I agreed. I had things to do with my Sunday, positive things, and I wasn’t going to let her ruin them.
If I could just tell her how I felt, and she could listen, everything would be fine.
I stopped at the end of the trail. I’d seen the plaque a million times, the one that explained how the three canals had been merged into one. Yet I read it again. I didn’t process it, but I read it.
First came Clinton’s Ditch in 1825, the name critics and skeptics gave it. Clinton saw it as an opportunity to connect the state, to cross borders and change lives. As I did with her, a shot into the web’s depths. People said no real connection could come from words on a screen.
Next came the Enlarged Canal in 1862, which veered some to the north and connected back to the rest of the canal. If up is north, then she came to me in the north. But it was more like she came over to the west. We met at a water park of all places, and soon found a connection to each other. A real, unbreakable connection.
Last came the Present Day Canal in 1918 which moved so much north that the plaque tells you to look behind you. I didn’t look back, because I’d seen the canal a million times. But maybe if I’d looked back on the past year, I’d see our unbreakable connection coming undone at the seams.
I stared at the water in front of me, ever fascinated by it. I didn’t sit on the bench since it was still wet from melting snow. But looking at it, I remembered only a year earlier when I could picture her and I sitting on that bench, talking. In my mind, she’d confided in me about things she couldn’t with her family around. That visit never happened, and she never opened up to me.
If anything, she just put up more walls.
If this were one of my novels, I would have sent my protagonist into a crying fit from imagining what could’ve been. Imagining the non-existent trip, what would’ve been said, how the conflict could’ve been solved. They’d dive into the cold canal, then run out after almost freezing into an ice cube. They’d get on their hands and knees, begging fate to keep this friendship alive. But this isn’t fiction and I’m not here to dramatize. All I did was stare, letting my mind turn to static, remembering the times I’d been here before. It calmed me for a few minutes, and that was the longest time my mind had been quiet in years.
I took a single photo for some other friends, people I knew wouldn’t judge me for taking a walk in 32° weather. Standing there, I felt cold consuming my fingertips as I snapped a shot of the thawing water. Quickly I shoved my phone into my pocket and headed back to the Civic. I listened to the birds once more, and the gravel crunching under my feet. I would soon have to return to the real world.
That’s the last thing I wanted to do.
But my body would thank me. By the end of the walk, I felt as cold as her tone and my feet hurt as much as her words. Even in my daily life, I could never escape my literary mind. Everything that happened had to be analyzed, processed, and interpreted.
The trail came to an end when I saw the lock in the distance. What made me smile more was seeing the Civic there, waiting. He wouldn’t be leaving me any time soon. Still alone, I set my hand on the hood, and thanked him once more. My reliable Civic said nothing back, as cars do, and that was what I needed. I had symbolically finished my trip, and returned to the stress of the real world. He would take me away and bring me back. He did it everyday, bringing me to work, to school. He was my portal between spaces.
I sat down and turned the key in the ignition. Knowing a song I didn’t prefer was coming up, I skipped ahead. I wanted to skip the “Here We Go… Again” of my life and skip straight to the “Don’t Break My Heart.” But I wasn’t asking her.
I was asking myself.
