Page 43 of Nights Without Night
“Isa, that’s what normal life is like. In the military, there’s always someone telling you what to do. Mission, rest, mission, uniform, formation, team. Sure, there’s a sense of purpose, but a lot of it is decided for you. In life, civilian life, there are periods ofdoing, and periods offiguring shit out. We all feel like we should be doing, doing, doing all the time. And I get how this can be worse if you’re used to not just doing, but doing something purposeful, life-threatening, filled with adrenaline—all those things. What you have to get used to now is the fact that, here, the purpose is preceded by having to find it. With times of feeling like you’re going nowhere simply because you’re not there yet.
“That’s the thing about being lost. You can walk, but every step can feel meaningless if you convince yourself it’s not taking you to the place you want to go—if you don’t even know where that is. It’s easy to stop in the middle of the forest and give up. But you need to put value in just putting a foot in front of the other, putting effort into just moving, and trusting you’ll learn enough about the forest to figure it out,” I say. The advice is for me as much for him; for my past selves, for every future self that is still filled with doubt.
“You trained two years with the Ops. Think of this period as training. Of collecting information. Of adjustment to a new environment. Look at it as the planning stages of a mission, instead of the mission itself.”
“How? How do I even get that information? I don’t even know where to look!”
“That’s the point! That’s life! You don’t know. None of us fucking knows. We’re all fucking faking it. Adulthood is bullshit. Everyone is a mess. Just think ofonething. One class. One activity. One like. One skill you want to develop. One person you admire. Just one thing, and explore. Not with a mission already in mind, but without expectation. Just for the sake of exploring. If you like it? Great. If you don’t? Fantastic. Knowing where not to go is as useful as knowing where to head so, just…explore,” I say. Isadoro looks at me.
“I’m just so…tired,” he admits. I can see the shame on his face and lift my hand to stroke it away.
“I know. It’s a lot. It’s so much. Being tired is okay. Staying in bed is okay. But not forever. It’s not easy, but you need to take one step. Just one. Forget about the others. Just one step.”
Isadoro closes his eyes, but I don’t feel like he’s shutting me out.
“Go away with me,” I say. Isadoro’s eyes open again. “A friend of mine has a little boat. We know how to sail, so…go away with me. I’ve got a few weeks between my last project and the start of work as the pieces get graded. We’ll go along the coast. It’ll be like fucking me; a transition to normalcy.”
Isadoro looks at me. He cups my hand still on his face.
“Just think about it,” I say. He nods and pulls me close again.
We rest.
**********
Iva barrels into the studio and fake-ballets towards me.
“Guess who got into the summer showing?” she sing-songs. I look at her. “You! And me. But also, you!” she says. I jump up from my stool.
“Really?”
“Yeeees!” she cheers. My heart races. The summer showing is every art student’s dream.
“Oh my God!” I shout, stumbling over a bag of stuff and almost tipping Iva over with an enthusiastic hug. She doesn’t seem to mind.
“We’re the best!” she laughs, hugging me back.
I tell Isadoro as soon as I get home. He’s out of bed, not doing much but in the living room. He takes a moment to process the words and then grins, his expression so wide and clear it cracks something inside me. He jumps over the back of the couch and picks me up, twirling me around as I giggle and hit him playfully.
“Told you,” he teases. I stick my tongue out at him. He looks at me. “Let’s go on that trip,” he says. I feel my expression drop into surprise and then lift again.
“Yeah?” I say. He nods, looking determined.
“Yeah.”
The end of the school year passes in a mess of stress. Time compresses and expands on a will of its own and I am simply dragged along. The future fades from the picture. All I can think about is the now.
I text Jack half-coherent updates. She replies in emoticons to make me laugh.
Isadoro, to my astonishment, signs up to take a sailing class. I don’t make a fuss about it, but it fills me with hope and energy. Some evenings he’ll sit on the couch as I do my homework, practising knots. I try not to get distracted by his hands winding the rope into intricate shapes, their grace and purpose.
I feel the flicker of hope expand.
Despite my focus on it, the end of exams and deadlines comes as a surprise. Suddenly, I’m done. There are no more chapters to study, assignments to do, vectors to obsess over, layers to tweak, tonal differences to lose my head over. It’s done.
I’m done.
I sleep for fourteen hours in Isadoro’s bed. When I wake up, he makes me breakfast. The anticlimactic hollowness that follows end-of-year exams is present, but it’s obscured by relief and the tentative excitement of the trip ahead of me.
