Brand New Start
I had never had the chance or the shrewdness to perceive signals to change my life. I was nineteen years old, me and all my "troubles". It was an interval time, and my life’s prospects were going down. I was like a lonely monotonous note, a tone of definite pitch, playing a song in an empty room. Deep down, I knew that I wanted a big change in my life. Losing a friend can motivate you to close your interval time and get yourself ready for a brand new start. Regrettably we shall no chose the act that will turn our lives around completely. Some time ago my heart was away from my sister, who had just decided to grow up and marry her love. I didn't know what she felt exactly to believe herself mature enough, if she is only one year older than me. Now she was away from home; she and my future niece. And I must say that it was not that dramatic! She actually moved one block away from home.
In the other scene was the fact that my silly friends had decided to forget me. We actually were changing inside. We would stop calling each other for months and even claim that there was nothing new going on. I never believed that nonsense. I was miles away from doing the things I most like to do. I was in shock for no apparent reason. “It's so much going on and it's nothing happening at the same time” I was lying down on the sofa; it was a pretty normal morning, I was tired because of my early English class, and a phone call, an apparently simple phone call from my dear friend, who hadn't called me in weeks, made me smile joyfully when I was just a second away from falling into a world of sleep deprivation. It was Daniela calling; I just said a cheerful hello; what happened? But the mysterious sound of total silence appeared to let me know that it was not good news. What happened? I asked again; and her voice broke down and cried: “It's Gisselle, Amy” – Daniela said. -What about…? –I asked- And it's quite strange how in the middle of a question, just two words away, I knew what she was trying to tell me. I knew it because of the mysterious silence. –“It's Gisselle, Amy”- she claimed.
Aloud, in my mind, I can't even remember all the ways I expressed my denial. -I'm on my way to your house- I said to her. I hung up and my world was paralyzed. I sat on the couch with my head down and my eyes closed. I was nowhere; I was hurt when I thought I couldn't be hurt; I was suffering endlessly, all inside, with no way of getting it all out. Not a tear, not a single one. The painful feeling of losing a friend, the one who you hold dear; inevitably, times turn down into sad days and a slow recovery. “Your life changes since the very first minute your friend lost her breath and you catch her sigh”. It's a tiny insignificance, a long second going unnoticed.
We were talking about Gisselle, the authentic and exceptional girl with the honey eyes; so lively, motivated, optimistic, so real, spiritual, unique, wise and wonderful. I was frightened. I had known her since we were eight, and we had become such good friends. She was so thoughtful and trustworthy that I knew we would have a caring friendship even when our grandchildren see us as the craziest grandmas they have ever known. We are really good friends, she, me and six more. We supported each other and we cared a shit if our classmates thought that we were the weird ones; It is somewhat like my grandfather says: “darling, you can claim to have a bunch of friends and that dating everyone will take you more than a year but you are the luckiest one if you have five real friends to date in one week and they can surely change your life just for being together”, “Oh definitely, what an extraordinary thought” I could easily get lost with all this words but the thing is that I got up of the sofa and I met my silly friends, the five who have changed my life. We sat together in the living room of my friend Daniela. I was incapable to share a cry; I was not feeling it, not because the horrible reason the I didn’t care, it was because I still waited for someone who told me it was all just a bad joke, the worst joke, but a hopeful one. We shared words, an embrace of love, healing looks, and silence above all. Deep down, I knew that everyone that day thought that it could have been one of us. We knew and could have a certain respect for the time; the time coming and the time past. Circumstances don't matter, it was like the “aha!” of the problem. “Where the heck I had my mind? --¡I was so into my “fucking” problems!
Late that day my friend drove me to my house, just five blocks away from hers. My mother opened the door, I got out of the car and finally, like a breeze touching my face, reality reached me. I hold my friend and she knew that at last I have realized that our friend was gone. I spent hours just thinking, I was not sharing words with anyone, not with the meant of doing it, it was just the way I was feeling it. I was not even spending time with my sister, not talking with my niece because I didn't want to make a pregnant woman feel sad, and I was sure that my little niece could perceive my emotions.
Lots of teas were doing their thing; but a strange thing happens when you go beyond imagining. The day had arrived, the day we had to say goodbye. Once more, words failed me. I can hardly find any words to describe that day. And just before the sun went completely, we went home. I arrived home, strangely inside of a world I barely understood but something inside just told me that things would get better. I lay on bed again, feeling attached to it, like my faster little own remedy; but I had already seen the sundown, the air blowing away, the clouds falling from the sky, I'd walk the way back home to the cemetery, I walked and I found peace. I must say that I found walking a pretty freeing business ever since. I lie down and felt asleep for a little while. My father took his key, called my brother and took us to the car: Your sister is in labor! - He said (excited). I nervously talked and said –What, What? - I shake a little and I went to the hospital.
It was almost midnight; it was the most thoughtful road I'd ever take. I arrived and perceived strange emotions everywhere. I didn't see my sister before she entered to the operating room. The only thing I did, and I barely remember, was thinking: “Oh God, Oh God”, I stayed quiet, then I bow, my head up and down, I lay on my mom's arms, I kept my tears, I folded my arms, I sang a song into my head, I heard the sound of a clock, I found myself jangling with nervous energy until I closed my eyes and waited for the sound, the cry of a new life. I was waiting to breathe again, to let everything, all behind. The seconds became minutes and the room bigger. I checked the clock, It was 1:10 am when someone said: “you heard that”, I said: “what, what?” - Another one screamed: “shhhhhhh, did you hear that”, I check the clock again and YES, it was 1:11 am, and a new life had just started. I simply cannot describe why uncontrollably I wept that day. I wept, yes, and everyone was scared. How you can feel a light of joy when just hours ago you did not perceive any lights or sounds, laughs and voices; it is strange but it is miraculous, you simply had been waiting for this, for a change, for a new prospect; you let your friend's hand and kept going.
