My Last Run with Old Thing
A reflection on letting go of your inner terrors — or trying to.
“I will chase just as long as you let me,” the Old Thing said to me, from inside my head where it lives. I was sitting in the bath, wondering if I was always going to feel like this scared of myself, this terrified of my own dark power. This destructive. I considered what Old Thing was saying, turned it over and over in my head, tried to get behind it by going around, or maybe over the top or underneath of it. To see what was on the other side, you know? Like what was behind that statement?
“I’ve been chased for as long as I can remember,” I said back to Old Thing. “You’ve always been here with me. Like my inside-shadow.”
“I’ll keep chasing until you stop. Until you turn around and say you’re not running anymore.”
“But remember all the trips we went on? Remember all the places we’ve lived, all the opportunities you took advantage of, to make me feel terrified of failure or the remotest appearance of it? Remember all the doomsday scenarios you play out for me, like little movies projected under my eyelids when I close my eyes to sleep at night? Remember the commercials of despair you play for me on those same closed lids before I snap them open in the morning as I step out of my dreams?”
