Blindness

The song had just switched on the stereo in my car to “Blindness” by Metric.

The sad, somber tones filled up the white noise. I tried singing along, but I couldn’t hold it in anymore — tears rolled down my cheeks, my breathing picked up, and my hands clenched the steering wheel. There was always something about that song that made me tremble, but I was already on a mission that had me on the edge of my seat.I don’t know what compelled me to do it — probably one of my latest blog posts — but I needed to go back, back to the house I had shared with Christopher. It felt like little pieces of me died everyday in that house. I needed to know if I could go back and claim them. We had lived in a nice suburb — fancy, cookie-cutter homes filled with soccer moms, honor students, and dads who wore suits to their office jobs. Our home always felt like the frat house on the block. Christopher’s beer cans would be blown off the balcony from the wind. The bushes were littered with his cigarette butts. The gray-blue paint on our house paled in comparison to the golden yellows, barn-door reds, and mint greens that the rest of the houses had. As I was driving down the country road to get to my old subdivision, I expected to see my former house shining with Christmas lights, perhaps a slanted snowman in the works that would melt before it could be finished. I wanted — no, I expected — to see a joyous house, one that would make me smile as I walked up to it. I wanted to look into the windows and see a loving family sharing Thanksgiving leftovers together. I wanted to see smiling children and happy pets. I wanted to see things that never happened the whole year and a half I lived there. But as I pulled up to my old block, every house but mine had their Christmas lights up. Most houses had lights from their TV or bedrooms shining. Mine didn’t. The bushes still looked dead. It was barren. The lyrics “I was the one with the world at my feet / Got us a battle, leave it up to me” was playing in the background as the rest of me focused on that house. I wanted to get myself back, see joy, but seeing that dead house made me feel trapped. I parked my car and got out. I had to get closer. I was drawn to the house — not by anything inside of it, just by my own blind desire to get back the lost pieces of my soul. I couldn’t leave without trying. It was sad seeing it up close. I started remembering things I had once forgotten. The sidewalk leading up to it reminded me of the fireworks Christopher had lit there during his Super Bowl party. The front yard reminded me of all the games of frisbee I had played with my pup. I remembered how hard the lock was to open on the front door. I walked to the side of the house. The big window in the living room that was usually lit up when I lived there was completely dark. The shades were drawn. I couldn’t see anything. In every other house, I saw old neighbors eating dinner or watching TV, but mine didn’t possess life of any kind. Even the one tree in the backyard seemed dead. I took a deep breath and scurried back to my car. “You gave me a life I never chose / I wanna leave but the world won't let me go / Wanna leave but the world won't let me go.”That house wasn’t ready to let me go. What part of me is in there, I don’t know. But leave it up to me: I won’t be defined by that house anymore.