Zuzanna Szmyt-Nowakowska
It usually appears out of nowhere, when you least expect it. Some people can tell when it’s coming, feel it approaching. There’s a sudden rush of cold, coming from somewhere deep inside, exploding, spreading out quickly from the pit of your stomach to top of your head, freezing your brain. It’s as if time had stopped still around you, yet—inside—it was speeding up. Everything is very clear but at the same time your mind’s in a haze; you find yourself looking for a way out. Time is slipping away from you and you keep begging for everything to stop, slow down, to just leave you be without that awful feeling.
Others can’t tell that it’s coming at all. They‘re going about their daily business, not suspecting a thing, when they are abruptly plucked out from what they have been doing.
It happens when you’re washing dishes, again and again. You’ve been washing dishes for five, ten, twenty minutes, four, eight, twelve times, and there’s always more dishes to wash. The dishes never end and you’re always standing by the sink wondering if you’ll be standing there forever.
It happens while you’re at your gran and grandad’s and, when you look at your mom, sat across from them, talking about something trivial, you realize she looks more and more like them. She frowns slightly, just like your grandma, a delicate crease forming on her forehead. You watch your grandpa make tea and cut up some fruits into pieces, and it’s just like watching mum, the same movements you’ve seen countless times. Finally, it strikes you. It’s not that they look different or that you’ve never noticed those things before. It’s that your grandparents are getting older, and so is your mom. And all you can do is watch time take them away piece by piece.
It happens when you can’t come to a decision , nothing seems tolerable. You have to decide, but whatever choice you make will be wrong. You can either do this or that and, either way you know you’ll be miserable. You‘ve looked at all the options, you’ve come up with new ones, you’ve tried, tried, tried. But it doesn’t change anything.
It happens when you’re driving home and don’t remember how you got there. You know where to turn and where to avoid the bumps and where to slow down. You pass the market and the little park you used to visit when you were younger and your junior school which you always wish to forget about. You get to the driveway, and your home is there, and you get out of the car, but you aren’t really here. You’ve lost yourself somewhere along the way.
It happens when you say goodbye to your friend 6000 miles away and when you hang up, your room is far too quiet without her laugh. She won’t be visiting for another two, three, six months; perhaps she won’t visit at all. Or maybe she will, but you’ll be somewhere else anyway, missing her by a day.
It happens as you realize that your gran is beginning to forget things and your aunt has Alzheimer’s, and there have probably been more women before you with the same issues, and it dawns on you that one day you may not remember much either. Maybe one day your granddaughter will stand in front of you, and you won’t recognize her, and years later she will do the same to her own grandkids.
It happens when you wake up for work, and you don’t see any point in getting up. It’s raining, and you’d rather stay inside, hidden from everything.
For some, the feeling goes away with a simple shake of the head, chasing the thoughts away. For others, the feeling remains, lingering somewhere within them, coming back again when they least expect it.
Summer 2022