The Lull

When you feel lost and everything is gone, you realize in the end everything comes at a cost. 

The year 2018 was the first year since my divorce where I felt free for the first time, in a very long time, possibly ever. After moving out of my Dad's house in Newnan, I moved in with a friend of mine who lived in Jonesboro, GA (D.P.). About two month's after moving in with (D.P.) I was hired at a German air-filtration company in Atlanta, it was approximately a forty-five minute drive from where I lived, depending on traffic. I was already making a daily journey for work to Peachtree City, so I didn't mind traveling to the city for work. The day I got hired I called my friend who referred me for the position and as soon as he answered the phone I screamed very loudly "I got the job!" I was exstatic. He said I was so loud everyone in the warehouse could hear me. I was hired on as the CEO's personal assistant but in reality after a while I just felt like a glorified clerk. 

The job was pretty straight forward and simple. After a few month's working there I was able to get my best friend at the time (A.G.) a position with the company. She and I had been best friend's since high school, but we had lost touch for a few years and rekindled after my divorce. We were able to share an office together and car-pooled most days. She and I were like two peas in a pod all over again, it felt like no time had passed at all. In the evening's when we would get off of work and make the long drive back to my house we would jam out to loud music while cruising down the highway in my little two-seater smartcar. That thing was way too much fun to drive, it was the only car I ever got ticketed in while driving. Usually, once we got back to my house she would come inside and chill with me and smoke for a few before getting in her car to make the journey home, as she lived further away about another thirty minute drive. 

Life felt really good and everything felt right. I was making new friends, strengthening old friendships, and honestly blossoming as a person. I was finding myself and embracing this new life I had fought so hard for. I was genuinely happy and my soul felt free. I was spending a healthy amount of time alone but also a healthy amount socializing with friend's, going out and what-have-you. I found a nice balance that worked for me. It helped a lot after a few month's working at the new company, I was able to get health insurance and in time was prescibed proper depression and anxiety medication that suited my need's perfectly. I felt like an entirely different person. The pain I used to suffer with, the headaches, the lack of appeitite and weight loss, the constant lethargy and lack of energy was all gone. I was eager and driven, I felt comfortable in my own skin and also in my own mind. However, as the cycle has proven, this senses of peace wouldn't last. 

As I mentioned earlier, I was socializing a lot more. I had started hanging out with an ex-coworker more often, we will call him (J.M.) he would usually come over to my place and we would play video games or sometimes we would meet up somewhere to eat lunch and just talk. I had worked with him previously in Peachtree City at a window manufacturing warehouse. He was quiet and reserved and came off a little odd until you got to know him better and he became comfortable enough to come out of his shell a bit. He was really tall and thin, and wore his hair a bit long to his shoulders. I remember he would always be wearing a wool hat of some sort to work, in sometimes 90 degree weather. Other times he would wear a bandana. I always got the sense that he was sad maybe even a bit lonely. Early one morning he invited me to come over to his house to hang out, I stopped at McDonald's and brought breakfast for us to eat. He lived with his Dad in this pretty big house, his Mom apparently lived out of State somewhere else and wasn't home much. When I walked into his house I got the feeling of sadness as well, a light heaviness filled the atmosphere. The house felt old and dark, not much natural sunlight got into the house either. 

I follwed him through his house, he lead me through the kitchen and living room. I noticed there were still Christmas decoration's and a tree up and it was around mid year, so I knew they had been up for a while past their expiration date. As we walked through the living room to make our way down the hallway, I remember his Dad approached us as he walked down the stairs into the living room. (J.M.) introduced us both and I recall feeling the same sad energy lingering around his Dad. We eventually continued and made our way down the hallway to his bedroom. We sat, ate and played video games for a few hours and talked. Eventually, I started to get a bit sleepy since I had shown up in the early a.m.'s so I asked (J.M.) if we could lay down and get a little nap in. It usually takes me a while to fall asleep in a foreign place but I was tired enough to fall asleep relatively quickly.

I don't know how long I was asleep for before my consciousness woke up but the rest of my body was very much still asleep, it always feels so heavy. My eye's were closed but I could see around me clearly, twilight blue filled the room. (J.M.) was asleep next to me and as my eye's scanned the room around me, my eye's locked onto the dresser across the room from the bed where we were sleeping.  There, on top of the dresser stood crouched over, was the same shadow figure I had seen countless times before. It's overly long arms and legs bent to fit into the space between the dresser and the ceiling. It's head tilting slowly from one side to the other as before, as it sat there silently observing me. As I usually do, I drifted off back to sleep and when I woke up a few hours later, I had that all familiar feeling. The lull was over and whatever it was, was back. Nothing I did changed or altered the fact that the only thing determining when and if I saw this shadow was simply time. Medication didn't stop it, lifestyle changes didn't stop it, it didn't matter if I was stoned or sober, awake or asleep. If it wanted me to know it was there, it was going to and it did.