Red Threads

Yuè Lǎo cherry stem ties a red thread to our fingers. "There you go" he says. "You are now connected for eternity".

Sunflowers bloom the length of my throat, vines restricting my airway.

"Breathe" she whispers. With her voice I feel my lungs expand and I can inhale again, the flowers suddenly withering to dust. Fear melts in my mouth, sugar, lukewarm.

It's always been this way. My soulmate, my destiny, my red string, whatever you call it, it means one thing only. That we are connected.

One year ago, and the heavens lay in shattered ruins at my feet. I close my eyes and I don't have to see the broken plates littering the floor, a marker of where I lost control. I lost control a lot back then. I let the panic overtake me at every turn, let wildflowers blossom and choke my lungs, let my brain turn into tv static.

The planets were not aligned then; it wasn't time for destiny to reveal itself and untangle the threads of fate to lead me into her arms. The crimson circle wrapping itself around my little finger let me know my soulmate had been brought forth into the world but her identity was then unknown to me. It could have been someone I knew, it could have been one of the people I had once dated. It could have been a complete stranger.

Instead, it was Kira.

For so many years the panic ruled my being, the weight of anxiety heavy as ripened fruit hung over me. I isolated myself from fear, lost touch with friends and family alike, too consumed was I in my own head. Kira was once upon a time a childhood friend. When the anxiety overtook my head and I began the process of isolation we lost contact. I lost contact with everyone back then. The more people I ignored and cut out of my life the more I deteriorated and so the more people I pushed away.

It was a lonely existence, eggshell walking trying not to disturb the anxiety, fledgling like lodged in my brainstem. The slightest trigger sent me into spirals, the panic crawling up my throat to constrict my breathing. Jittery, like too much nicotine in my system.

Now though, she says "Breathe" and so speaks it into being. This connection, this pure unadulterated support and love means the anxiety weighs a little lighter on my chest. All girlhood closeness sweet like cinnamon and trembling limbs- I close my eyes and all I see is the colour of her eyes burned into my being, stigmata for my soul.

When the time came for destiny to unravel itself I was in the midst of a depression. The scarlet tattoo encircling my finger felt tight and I knew it was happening, the red string that bound me to my soulmate was becoming tangible instead of metaphorical. It should have been the most exciting moment of my life, to find out who she was, who I was bound to for eternity. But instead, all I felt was emptiness. I didn't possess even the energy to lift my head and look at the newly formed thread which would run across my floor and out of the door, to be attached to her at the other end. The process goes like this: the cord connecting us becomes physical, the both of you follow it until you meet. There are stories of couples crossing continents to be together, tracking the cord. Part of its magic is that you somehow know the right direction in which to travel. These stories are rare though. It is much more common that you already know your soulmate, have walked into them at the supermarket or were in a class with them years before.

But I was filled with exhaustion, weighing heavy on my body. And so, I waited.

I did not wait long. Several hours passed as I lay in bed before a knock at the door disturbed my half consciousness. I dredged up energy to answer it, half guessing it would be my so-called soulmate, planning to ask them to return another day, one where my brain was cooperating just a little more and I could hold a conversation without feeling drained.

Kira.

I recognised her instantly although it had been years since we were in class together. Shame overtook me; all too aware of the mess my house had degraded into during the weeks depression engulfed me. But all she did was laugh.

"I'm so glad it's you! I've been so worried all the way over but this is amazing- to be reconnected by fate."

I know she is not the cure, I am not that naïve. There is no true cure for this- only days that feel a little lighter, a little brighter. Treatment in the form of chalky pills and talking therapies. She widened my world, enticed me back outside and from there I was able to rebuild relationships, regrow what I had lost in the years spent secluding myself. As my world expands again each day gets a little easier. I'm a godless sort of being but her arms feel like religion; I call her my home. Every day is an uphill battle against my own being but she's there each time, leaking support into my veins, encouraging me, letting me know someone cares.

All I know is life feels a little less lonely with someone by my side.