Life Lost

• Lizzy Stanfield, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2019

There is something inherently uncomfortable about not knowing what could come next in life, something deeply unnerving about the thought that everything you once knew has been pulled out from under you.
I've found myself feeling hollow recently. Empty. Numb. A shell of who I once was. I'm floating through life, but it's less like floating and more like being tossed around by waves of uncertainty, fighting for a chance to wash ashore and resume business as usual. Except that business as usual is a ridiculous delusion. I grasp for it frantically, despite knowing it will be out of reach, despite knowing that you were the roots that held the soil of my life's island together. You were the rain that nourished, the flower that flourished. I should've realised I was living in paradise, should've appreciated it before it, before you, disappeared forever. But I guess that's just it. The reason disasters are so disastrous is that they are freakish.
Which is why I've stopped making plans. My diary remains painfully empty. I even took out your birthday, since I won't be needing to celebrate it anymore. It isn't completely gone though. When you turn the page, you see the indentation of what was there. You can still make out a few hearts, some exclamation points, maybe the word birthday. And I like that. Because even though life as I knew it has long gone without a chance to say goodbye, it still lingers in things such as these.
The only other residue left from my old life is a voicemail you left me last year. I listened to it again this morning. It was ridiculously bittersweet and maybe I won't do it again, but also, I know that I will, because this voicemail might be the key to what's next for me.
You see, I had something coming up and I was stressed and struggling, and you decided to be my hero, as you were wont to do. You recorded me a little pep talk, and I received it thirty minutes before I went in. It made me feel perfectly prepared. In that moment, I was ready to take on the world, whatever changes may have come. I miss that feeling. So, I listened again. And I think something may have changed because I started to feel.
I started to look in the mirror without feeling nauseated, despite the you-shaped emptiness that remained. I started to breathe and stopped being actively afraid of any change that might pop up out of nowhere.
Getting my life back is completely impossible. Getting you back is equally unlikely. But maybe I will learn to embrace life's tumultuous nature. To stop fighting the daunting waves of change and let them carry me to a new place. I'll plant new seeds, nurture myself for a while.
I think I've learned something now. I think you taught me, whether you meant to or not, that life is not lost. It will go on.