fourth year claire torak

It is an odd thing to be told by someone you consider to be an incredibly close friend and trusted confidant that even though they’ve known you for three years, they don’t really know you. Sitting on the floor of her living room, blinking at her through glazed-over eyes, I began to cry. She was right, and we both knew it.

I’ve lived my entire life believing in my silence. My secrets were mine and mine alone, stuffed into the pockets of my chest in hopes that they would disappear. I convinced myself that if I let people have all of the pieces of me, they’d learn that there wasn’t that much to love and leave.

It was then, as I sat curling my fingers into the carpet, that I realized it was time to let go of my fear and find my voice.

The word “change” has always carried a negative connotation for me. I don’t want to acknowledge what I can’t control, and change often makes it feel as though my life is slipping through my fingers, no matter how many times I try to keep it contained in my palms. In a world where the only day-to-day constant is change itself, there is nothing left for me to hold onto. Life is shifting underneath my feet, and it’s taking me with it.

Our lives are now dictated by distance. It feels as though everything is happening in the space between. Between friends, between words, between two strangers standing in line at the grocery store. I think that all of the change, good and bad, is happening there too.

The good thing about space is that it’s a blank slate. It waits to be cluttered and transformed as we learn to fill it with life and meaning. It is nothing but openness—an openness that has provided me the patience to grow. Over the last few months, I have stretched my arms into that emptiness and made it mine.

Slowly, all of my gaps are being closed. Little by little, honesty is slipping out of me. My words, my truths, are taking up the space they deserve instead of being stuck to my tongue. In replacing my emotional withdrawal with sincere, intentional communication, my life has become much sweeter. My friendships are more meaningful, more equal. My heart is much lighter. In giving away every part of myself, I’ve gotten a whole new world in return.

The other day, one of my friends told me that I had grown immeasurably since the start of the year. I hadn’t noticed. Maybe that’s why I’ve gotten so good at keeping my plants alive recently—I’ve learned to stop drowning them at the roots.

The Space Inbetween