It wants to survive

It was pure chance that the day I skipped class to go to church, I packed a new book to read.

I will never truly recall why, perhaps sheer desire to stray away from another hour of advanced mathematics, in an overcrowded classroom, where the two windows allowed very little sunlight to peer in. Choices weren’t many, either endure an elongated period of suffocation, loathing every fraction of time as I felt the judging gaze of too many eyes shred my cover and scratch straight into the darkness already engulfing half my being, or choose to hit pause and reset.

Perhaps this came from feeling perfectly mundane, leading a life for others, making it fairly easy to hold on to exterior means for freedom, clutching on fictional tales like the only lifesaver pulling me above water, in a world that’s nothing but an endless ocean. Easy decisions, minor consequences, I grabbed my pack and out the gates I went, roaming the streets of Tirana, looking for a place to sit and stew in my own thoughts, away from the grizzly sky on a miserable looking Tuesday afternoon. My feet brought me to the new Orthodox church in the center of the city. I had been here before to reflect, recite a silent prayer and admire every piece of progress on the developing frescos.

This church was always empty, readily receiving my never-ending chain of concerns and delivering seconds of peace. I was never particularly religious and had questioned my faith many times in my early years, yet this church had become my only solace away from life, away from my superimposing family, away from shame and internal struggle. It served as an isolated vacuum for me to test my inner theories without friction or gravity, and it served me well.

This Tuesday, I pulled out “The Black Obelisk” from my pack, a heavy book that fell with a thump on my lap as I opened it on page one. This was one of the only times I ever read in Church, as I merged myself with Remarque’s masterful narration of all kinds of life’s disappointment in post-WWI Germany. Although the characters’ lives were connected to the country’s socio-economic state, the many chunks of soul and humanity on the page made such writing relevant to the mood taking root inside me. That book was my first step in recognizing and understanding writers of the lost generation; trapped souls scarred from war and dysfunction, always seeking means to keep senses numb and memories dull.

Stories of pain and inevitable tragedy can become loyal friends to your own and guide you through a path of healing. Such stories keep me company at night, whenever I am left alone with my thoughts, or processing the past. I am now convinced that embracing the end shouldn’t appear to be a sign of surrendering, but a strength of facing the world as it is. This is what books taught me, strength to take the world in.