We sat in silence around the wooden coffee table, each not really looking at the other. The tension hung heavily in the air as we somehow avoided each others' gaze, choosing instead to survey the wallpaper, the chai mug, or in Missy's case, the exit door instead of the others.
Mademoiselle sat languidly, still as a thin tendril of smoke curled tiredly up from her stick, poised unenthusiastically near the floor from equally unenthusiastic fingers, her expression tired and drawn.
Missy hunched into herself, quietly, her gaze fixed on the unmoving mug and I looked consequently from the table, to the wallpaper, to the wallpaper on the other end of the room, back to the table and so on. Finally, I took a deep breath and broached the question that waited expectantly but which none of us were too eager to discuss. I myself for one, did not know where to start.
"Do you think we're in over ourselves?" I asked.
Mademoiselle sighed but said nothing. Missy lips turned down in a sad frown and she looked like she was about to cry.
I sighed. "Look, this does not have to be difficult. We can work things out. What're we doing here?"
More silenced. I waited impatiently as the seconds ticked by. I did not like the waiting, the uncertainty. My impatience grew till I moved restlessly in my chair and the others must've sensed it. We all knew we had important matters to discuss.
"We may just be," Mademoiselle admitted at long last, raising her hand to rub her forehead slowly.
Missy just wimpered and looked sad.
"Sometimes I wish I was back to where I was, when I made decisions solely for myself and I considered no one in making them," Mademoiselle said. "I'm not cut out for this. Maybe I've gone too long without, but I for one was happy where I was. You on the other hand..." She looked at Missy.
Missy looked up and said softly, "I felt like I needed it. It was just something that was never there, always missing."
"But I suppose it's caused us more misery than it has joy hasn't it?" I offered at last.
"Well if it causes this much misery, why have we not let go then? Relinquished it and went back to the way we were?" Mademoiselle asked pointedly.
Missy looked in agony over the turmoil of emotions within her. She hadn't the answer for it, and she knew that. They turned to me.
I hated it. I absolutely despised it so. The helplessness, feeling like I was stuck in the rut all over again, only of a different kind this time. Cycling through one rut after another, never really finding peace and solace anywhere that didn't yield to the battering of doubt, despair and uncertainty.
"Because we know it could be good. It usually is. For other people. Just that somehow, it cannot be for us. Not now. Not yet perhaps. And we are now afraid to go without it, having had it. It's just that sort of an addictive thing isn't it. Maybe it's the idea, planted by so many years of conditioning or maybe it is the truth of the human condition, but we just cannot really live without it. Some might be able to. We aren't ready to take that leap off. We are afraid, we are as always, uncertain but despairing at the way things are turning out and going about."
They both looked at me. "So what do we do now?" Missy asked.
"We soldier on. And maybe someday soon, we'll find a way to deal with it and we'll be all the more better for it. This upheaval, it is strange, it is unusual, and it is highly uncomfortable. But we must choose to believe that in the end, it will all lead to something good," I answered.
We've always had our set ways, all of us. And nothing had changed in a long, long time. I suppose when it did, we all just didn't know how to deal with it without getting lost within and without ourselves and losing ourselves. But things have to change, and in general, most would say they have for the better. It is a good change. A positive change. One cannot stay stuck in that same stage of life forever. So reluctantly sometimes, we all move forward. And we stumble, and we fall. Some more than others. But I do hope we will find our bearings and stand proud and sure again soon. We most certainly will.
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