Second chance to Viotta

Chapter 1

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

A lot can happen in three years, and if I had any control over it, it would have never happened the way it did. Unfortunately I didn't have any control over it, and I probably never will. Life just isn't like that. It enjoys to throw me around without holding back - in and out, up and down a deep, dark pit. When I describe it like that it actually sounds kind of disheartening, but it's quite the opposite.

It makes the small moments, in which I see the light outside that pit, so much more meaningful. It makes me long in anticipation to experience such a moment, even if it's just for a second. I savour it - hoping for new ones, yet knowing it could be the last one. This makes them special.

Although that sounded pretty optimistic, not everyone can tolerate the unexpected harshness life throws at them. Some people get thrown back too deep and the pressure will crumble them in little pieces, unable to be glued back together. They were consumed by their fears - by the things they thought were trampling on their parade of life. They were being held back. Not because they were incapable of living, but because they used their fear as an excuse to not live.

I used it as an excuse to not live.

At night I would sometimes stare at the ceiling asking myself why I had felt anxious about not knowing what is to come, because it's way more terrifying to know what is, when you are not prepared for it in the slightest. At those nights, dread was seeping out of my pores, into the room, spreading like a disease. It made every little scary thing in the past seem so small in comparison.

However, I made it out. Just in time to once again see that light. To say it was easy, would be the understatement of the year. Nevertheless, I am going to make it valuable - rewarding. And to accomplish that I need a pen and some paper, filled with the things I want to experience in life before being hauled back into that pit I don't particularly like.

My own bucket list.

My train of thought is interrupted by Sophia, who is yelling at me to stop procrastinating, and it reminds me that I am standing on the edge of a cliff. The rough edges of stone are pressing into my feet, slightly wet from the earlier rainfall, and ice cold. The cold travels up my spine - slowly making its way through my whole body, numbing it. The wind is picking up its speed, as if knowing what I am about to do - preparing itself for the choice that needs to be made; catch or fall. Not that it would matter. I'll fall anyway. 

You got to jump first though. You said it yourself Liv. Make it worthwhile. Stop. Being. Afraid. Let's live.

And then I am flying. My limbs have become a jumbled mess soaring through the wind, my ears can only register the sound of my beating heart, and a rush of adrenaline is pumping through my veins - igniting me from the inside out. The cold forgotten, and with that all my thoughts. It's only me with the wind, plunging to the dark waters before me. For a short moment, I feel free. Free from the expectations that others have of me, that I have of myself.

Then, I hit the water surface with a loud splash. My body is once again enveloped by a cold embrace that awakens me. The jumbled limbs have returned to their original form and push me upwards - back to the real world.

I gasp loudly when I emerge out of the water, letting air back into my lungs. My feet move forward and back to keep me floating. As a reflex I push away the strands of hair that are out of place, only to remember that they are too short to move out of place and I simply brushed the little spikes on my head. My "new hair". 

Sophia is screaming like a lunatic when I swim to the shore, and she stumbles her way over to me. I pull myself up onto the soggy grass, leaving a trail of mud on my hands and legs. A second later she squeezes the life out of me, giving my shaky legs the support they need. Over her shoulder I can see the cliff that I just took a leap off.