Eternal Winter

At seven in the morning, my alarm sounded from the left side of my bed. My eyes opened and I rolled over, a hand reaching out to silence the shrill sound. I stared up at the white ceiling and listened to the ticking of the clock as it counted down the time I was wasting.

Tick, tock.

I sighed, closing my eyes because the sound was a reminder that drove me insane. The reminder that time was falling away like sand through my fingers, but it didn't matter because I had nothing to do; nothing to look forward to. The world was moving at its regular speed around me while I was frozen in time, watching everything but not truly taking it all in.

I got up. Got dressed. Brushed my teeth. Ate a banana. Same routine, every day.

I was frozen. Frozen in my Eternal Winter. Never thawing. Never living. Just existing.

I left my small apartment, bag in hand, at a quarter to nine. I made it to the gallery at 9:02. Always late, but they understood.

"Morning, Leigh."

David's strong voice startled me as I walked into the main entrance. I hadn't seen him there, just a few feet to the side of me. He wore large, square, black glasses, a scarf that matched his beanie and had an apron tied around his middle. David always looked like an artist. I always looked like a mess.

I gave him a weak wave and headed back to the studio, a small room at the back of the building. A room that would be my sanctuary if it weren't for the fact that I shared it with two other artists. Regardless, the few hours I did spend there were the only moments I wasn't completely frozen.

The gallery was opening for the first time that very night. We were in Washington, just outside of Seattle, so David and his fiancé Ada, the other artist I worked with, had faith that we would bring in a substantial number of people. I tried not to hope. Hope would break you down until there was nothing left.

I pulled my canvas away from the corner of the room and set it in the middle. The walls here were white. It was bright, but didn't have any windows. It was a lot like the inside of my mind. All the walls in my mind were white, the ground holding inches of snow that kept me captive, my feet rooted as I stood underneath a dead tree with frosted tips. It was supposed to keep me safe from the snow, but it had lost the green of its leaves long ago. The snow fell in a never-ending pace, though there were no clouds. There was nothing but snow, the tree, and me. All keeping each other company.

I had been blessed with a good life. My parents were good parents, raised me well. I had a younger sister, one I had so much love for, I didn't know it was possible to hold that much in your heart. I grew up in a nice neighborhood. I was never exposed to anything harmful, never had anything bad happen to me, didn't have a tragic past that came back to haunt me during late hours of the night.

Yet it had hit me when I was seventeen years old. The void in my chest. The longing for something I couldn't name. The frozen winter that spread through my body and engulfed my senses with nothing but ice.

Depression.

I felt like a fraud, really. Nothing caused my condition. You always heard about men and women who rose up from their depression caused by abusive homes, cheating spouses, a death of someone they loved, you get the point. But I had none of those. Didn't face a tragedy I wasn't ready for, didn't fall in love with the wrong one, didn't have a man lay a hand on me. I was just me, living a good life, until the blood in my veins froze over and whitened my mind.

I set my bag down and pulled my paints out, along with my brushes.

I never went to college. It was too hard for my state of feeling. So, I stuck with what I was good at: art. And one day, while carrying my easel down the pathways in a park I was only half aware of, I got a tap on my shoulder by a man with the name of David with his fiancé Ada, and they convinced me they thought the art I was carrying in my arms was good enough for a gallery. And so, at twenty-three years old, after living off my parent's money for several years after high school, I got my first "job".

But it didn't feel like a job, really. Art was my calling. What I was meant to do. It made me feel less longing, less fragile, less encased in snow.

There was a knock on the studio door. I turned my head to see Ada with her beautiful blond hair and blue eyes poking her head in. "You all set for tonight?"

I nodded, cleared my throat. "Just about."

She flashed me a smile and a thumbs up. Always full of energy, she was. She was the wild one. David was the mellow one. I was the fragile one.

"Oh, forgot to mention: David is having a friend of his come down to perform some music at the gallery tonight. He thought it would be a good attraction, spice things up a bit. I hope you don't mind."

I didn't mind anything. "Sounds good to me."

"Sweet," she replied, and then she was gone.

I faced my easel again. It was almost done. It was my most personal painting yet. It was a bare tree, frosted with snow, the white wonder surrounding it. I was painting the inside of my mind.

I picked up a brush and finished the painting.

Everywhere I went I was numb. The ice was cold enough that it numbed my senses. But when I was painting, it was different. Standing in front of an easel, something inside of me always cracked open. I painted with my remorse. I painted with my longing. I painted with the ice inside of me. It melted onto the canvas like it belonged there, like this was the reason for my suffering. Art is an incredibly personal thing, no matter what form it comes in. Music, literature, painting, drawing, every medium of art that exists in the world comes from some place inside of a person with a soul longing to release its story to the world.

Before I knew it, I was snapped back into being and my painting was done. I pulled in a breath because the beauty and vulnerability I gazed at in front of me was something I couldn't look at for fear of destroying it before anyone saw. I set it aside and covered it with a sheet. I had many pieces being shown that night, but wasn't yet sure if that one would join them.

I washed my hands of paint and wandered into the main room of the gallery. My paintings were ready to be put up in the right corner of the room. David's clay sculptures were the center of the room, and Ada's steampunk sculptures sat to the left. My art didn't fit, didn't belong, but they assured me it didn't matter. All art had a place together, they said.

I walked to the main entrance room in search of Ada and David, only to find they had left me a note saying they went to the store to pick up some finger food for the opening. I threw the note away, found my bag, plugged my earphones into my phone and turned my music up loud. Then I went to the main gallery room and began setting up my display.

I was hanging the final piece when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It startled me so much that I dropped the painting, whirled around, and felt my eyes go wide as my heartbeat sped up faster than it had in several years.

A man stood in front of me. And his mouth was moving. As I stared at him, his lips tipped up, his head and eyes tilted down and his hand went to rub the back of his neck. Then his head came back up, his hand reached out, and he pulled an earbud out of my ear.

"Can you hear me?" his deep voice rumbled, those lips still tipped up in amusement.

I swallowed thickly, the fear melting away and the ice taking over once again. I nodded.

He chuckled softly. "Right. I'm Noah, David's friend. I'm here to perform tonight."

I found my voice again. His hand was outstretched to shake and I placed mine in his. The numbness thawed a bit as his warmth traveled up to my wrist. "Leigh," I replied quietly, pulling my hand away. To busy my hands, I pulled the other earbud out and wrapped them around my phone, shoving it in my pocket.

He eyed me with a weird look in his eyes before asking, "David here?"

I shook my head, stepping away from him. Too close, he was too close. "They went out."

He nodded, taking my cue and moving away from me. "Cool. Care if I take a look around?"

I shook my head. "Go for it."

He began to turn, but then his eyes caught on something behind me and he stepped forward, closer than he had been before. He reached behind me and I moved out of his way. My eyes traveled down to see he held my painting. He then hung it up in the place it needed to be, and took a step back.

But his eyes were still glued to the painting.

"Thanks," I whispered.

His intense blue eyes shot to mine. He held something in them that I recognized, something that was familiar to me. "You painted this?"

I nodded, my mouth suddenly feeling like it was stuffed with cotton. The air in the room became electrified with intense feeling.

He sucked in a breath and looked back to my piece. His whisper was almost revenant. "It's beautiful. Unlike anything I've ever see."

The painting was an abstract of a haunted female face. The features were hard to make out underneath the blend of blue and gray shades. But the eyes—white except for the pupil—stood out to symbolize the entering of my mind. This was the second most personal piece for me, right below the painting of my tree—the inside of my mind.

I didn't know what to say. It was terrifying, having someone study your art, especially when they studied it so intently.

His eyes traveled to the empty space next to it. "There another one that's supposed to be there?"

"I don't know," I was surprised to find myself admitting.

When he looked at me with curiosity, I further surprised myself by explaining. "It's too... personal. I don't know if I'm ready."

"All art is personal."

"I know," I agreed. "But this one is especially so."

"May I see it?"

I opened my mouth but words wouldn't come out. I was frozen in place. Not because of my Eternal Winer, but because of his calm familiarity; he acted as if we were two friends, like he had known me forever. But he was a stranger.

His eyes had gentled before he spoke his words. They held me captive, their warmth so different from my cold. "I'm a musician," he said low. "I know what it's like, baring yourself to the world. I won't judge, won't pressure, I'd just like to see it. If you're comfortable with it."

My head tipped to the side. I wasn't used to this. Wasn't used to soft, warm words. But something about him and that familiar look in his eyes made my yearning soul convince my mouth to voice an, "okay," and lead him to the studio before I could think about what I was doing.

He stood a few feet away while I walked to my art as if he knew I needed to build up a wall around me for strength. I picked the canvas up and closed my eyes. I let out a breath and opened them before slowly pulling the sheet off and turning while holding it facing him.

The world was going a thousand miles an hour, but we stood there in that moment suspended, a feeling different than being frozen. His eyes were active as they took in my visualized mind, something heavy settling in the air between us.

I wanted him to say something. Needed him to. This air between us was getting heavier and harder to bear.

His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed. He opened his mouth, words ready to spill out, but there was a knock on the door, interrupting this strange meeting of sun and snow.

David walked in and clapped his hands together. "Noah! I saw your car parked out front. Sorry, had to run to the store and pick up some finger food."

Noah was still staring at me, but his eyes slowly moved to David. "It's no problem."

David studied Noah before looking to me. He tipped his head slightly before shaking it. "Well alright, how about you go get your things and we'll set you up."

Noah agreed and started to follow David out. I stood there, my art held tightly in my hands, feeling like an idiot, letting the numbness run back up my spine and infiltrate my chest.

But before he made it out of the door, Noah paused and turned to look at me. His eyes captured mine and I held my breath at the longing they spread across the room. Not sexual longing, something deeper, more intimate. "Hang it up," he ordered.

And then he left.

I stood there a solid five minutes, no longer feeling like an idiot, but not knowing what I was feeling. And I made a decision.

That night, I displayed my most personal painting.

*****

The gallery opening was going well. David and Ada were right: not a whole bunch of people came, but a good number of them did, and that had me feeling that maybe hope didn't always let you down.

People actually stopped and looked at my paintings. Made offers. I sold almost all of them, but no matter how many people had asked, I wouldn't sell the one displaying my Eternal Winter.

For the first time in a long time, I felt proud of something, like I wanted to tell my parents and my younger sister and show that I was capable of functioning, that my condition didn't have complete control of me. They didn't know about the opening for I hadn't told them, but now I felt like I needed to call them at that exact moment and spill my frozen truths.

This train of thought was surprising to me, but what was more surprising was the voice that began to softly drift my way from the other side of the room.

I turned and I saw him, sitting on a stool, people surrounding him, a guitar sitting on his lap. Some leaned into the person standing next to them, some placed bills in the guitar case that sat at his feet. All listened and enjoyed.

I listened.

Our eyes connected from across the room.

It was a song I knew well. The Neighborhood's "How" drifted out of his lips and saturated the air with remorse and confusion and anger.

And I understood.

I placed what the familiar look in his eyes had been when we stood in the studio while I showed him the darkest part of me. He was showing me the darkest part of him. And I recognized it. The longing, the remorse, the thoughts of ending it all. I recognized the deep pits of blackened despair that kept hold of you while you struggled to breathe, to move from your position in the frozen snow. The word doctors used to describe it was depression. But how could such a small word encompass the all-consuming feelings of something bigger than what anyone could explain or completely understand?

I tore my eyes from his as something gripped my chest. The numbness had thawed there. My breathing was heavier, not used to the pressure. I needed air. Fresh air.

So, I made my way to the doors and stepped out, the frigid January air biting into my cheeks, filling my lungs with bitter frost, solidifying me in the position underneath a dead tree in my mind.

"You understood me."

I turned quickly. Noah had followed me. I didn't respond.

He nodded, as if my non-answer was enough. Perhaps it was. "I thought so."

He took a step closer, and I fought to move, but didn't dare. Something was happening. "You aren't alone," he whispered.

I jerked back, eyes darting to his. "What?" I whispered back.

"You aren't alone," he said, stronger this time. "You don't have to walk through life like you're frozen in time while everything else moves around you."

I felt the sting in my nose. The burn in my eyes. And I wondered how this stranger knew so much about me, and why I decided to trust him. "How did you know?"

He gave me a sad smile, one filled with all of the hard knowledge and experience that no one should have to know. "I recognized it in you the moment I laid eyes on you. Not to mention your paintings. Windows to your soul."

My breathing was accelerating again. The ice was thawing in my veins, dripping from my fingertips, taking the numbness away. "How can you stand there and make a promise like that? Say I'm not alone? You don't know me and I don't know you."

He shook his head. "I don't know you, and you don't know me, but our souls know each other. It's the artist's curse. We feel too much, think too much, and when we recognize the same qualities in another person, we attach, latching on because there are so few of us."

And maybe it sounded crazy. Maybe it was farfetched. Maybe it was something that belonged only in a fairy tale told to children before bed, but I believed him. Because I felt it. Something was there, that familiarity. And I didn't know him, but I knew him. The sufferer in me recognized his suffering. The artist in me recognized his artist.

"How long?" he asked quietly, seeing my change in behavior. I was no longer completely guarded. "How long have you had depression?"

I sucked in a breath. I swallowed thickly. "Seventeen," I whispered. "Since I was seventeen."

We were silent. He gave me that. Didn't ask any more questions, just let the weight of my truth settle against him and held it for me while I relaxed for a moment.

"How do you do it?" I asked suddenly. "How do you separate it? I didn't recognize it in you until you let it go in that song."

He was silent for a moment, hands in his pockets, slightly long black hair ruffled from the frigid wind. "You hand it to someone else," he said quietly. "I used to hand it to someone else. Parents weren't very good, but I loved my sister, she loved me, and that love helped her carry the weight of my dark while keeping her in the light." He shook his head, something dark settling over his face, and I bet all that was me that he was feeling rooted to the ground by snow, frozen in this moment that he had to relive the worst tragedy a sibling could face. "I lost her. Lost all of them. Dad was drinking, Mom not paying attention. They all got into the car. Dad drank a lot, and drove that way a lot. Millie, my sister, usually walked home on days like that, but it was mid-December, years ago. Freezing temperatures, snow and ice. She didn't want to walk home." He visibly swallowed, his eyes telling me he was in a different place, not here with me, not now. He was reliving that moment in another place.

"They slid on the road, around a bend. A semi was coming around the opposite direction. Their car slid right into its path, and they were gone." His voice was shaky, strained. He looked at me and I saw a mix of emotions impossible to untangle. "I lost them all."

Something warm slid down my cheek. A tear.

He let out a rough breath. "I stopped handing my weight to people after that. I sunk deeper into a hole while wearing that weight around my neck. Until David lifted me up and placed me back on my feet."

I looked away from him, studying the snow on the ground. It was beautiful. Deadly.

"We weren't mean to be alone," he said quietly. "No matter how much we'd like to believe it, we can't handle the weight of life on our own."

I felt like I should say something, but "sorry for your loss" didn't seem enormous enough to handle the truth he had just given me. So, I reached out blindly and took his hand. Mine was freezing. His was warm. I was snow and he was the sun. He squeezed mine, and I had a feeling that this gesture was him supporting me rather than me supporting him.

"I can't talk about it," I said quietly. "Not now."

He squeezed my hand again. "I understand."

I closed my eyes tight. "I don't... there isn't anything that made me this way. I just am this way."

"Doesn't matter if there is or isn't a cause," he said quietly. "Either way doesn't mean you hurt any less, or that it's any less real."

"I can't talk about it now," I repeated softly.

But his words had struck a frozen cord in me. The tree in my mind sprouted a small, green leaf.

"What about tomorrow night, at dinner?"

I faced him again. "What?"

He gave me a small smile, most of the seriousness from the last few minutes fading. "Can you talk about it then?"

I blinked at him. "Are you asking me on a date?"

He smiled full and brilliant. "I am."

I eyed him. I thought about what he had told me. I thought about my artist recognizing him. And I thought about his question. Then I decided that yes, I could talk about it the next night at dinner. And so I said, "Yes."

And I did talk about it at dinner the next night. And when we went on our second date, I talked more. And on our third, my tree sprung another leaf. On our fourth, my Eternal Winter was thawing. And when I had lost count of the amount of dates we had been on, he asked me to marry him, a golden ring to symbolize summer instead of winter in his hand, and I said yes.

Noah helped me discover things I would have never found on my own. He made me realize that just because I had been diagnosed with something that seemed larger than life, it didn't mean it really was larger than life, or that I had to let it control me. He made me realize that just because I didn't have a tragic past, didn't mean my pain was any less real. He made me realize that I could be an artist and not suffer all the time, just for the sake of my art. He made me realize that people with depression were not weak; they were some of the strongest people in the world. He made me realize that to help those people, the stigma of mental illness needed to be dropped away so that they could speak without fear of judgement, and give their weight to someone else for a while. He made me realize that even though there was no cure for depression, it didn't mean that it was impossible to ease the weight of it. He made me realize that giving it to someone else to hold for a little while was what love was. And that was what we did the years we were together. We shared our burdens. We held each other up when it felt like the weight was too heavy to hold.

And he made me realize that snow and ice didn't last forever.

Which meant that an Eternal Winter wasn't possible.

And I thanked God every day that the snow melted away from around my feet, my tree sprouted vibrant leaves, and my sun shone to forever ward away the snow.