Doorways to forever
To cross or to stay?
Doorways are a liminal space. You all step through so confident of where you will re-emerge. Yet, if you just hesitate with your foot over the threshold you might glimpse the other possibilities. One door could take you to multiple places. Multiple realities. Multiple lives. If you could start over, what would you be? That is the power of a doorway.
I know all this, but still I hesistate. Unable to forgo the mundane for the glimpses I spot through every doorway of a richer, brighter possibility. There is little left here for me now, any hopes of a live with you now dashed as I see you watch him. But will that other life be any better? Could I spend a thousand lifetimes constantly switching from one place to another, never finding that elusive peace I strive for?
Every door that temps me away from here, eats away at my resolve to stay. There are so many I would disappoint if I disappeared with no warning. Yet, the tantalising possibility taunts me. I count endlessly the doors I step through every day, and the myriad of possibilities behind each. The sheer number of options boggle my mind. How could there be so many? I bet you pay them no attention, too focused on those who pay you court, flitting round you to soak up the reflected grandeur.
Do you miss my attentions? I used to be one of them, sitting at the centre with you. What did I do to fall out of your inner circle? Was there more to it, than supplanting me with a new favourite? If I made a mistake, I am uncertain what it was. So here I sit no longer vying for your notice, content to watch you from afar, my habitual place is now in the edges. One eye watches you, while the other is unable to leave the door.
I hear the whispers. Those who assume someone else has caught my eye, that I'm waiting for that first glimpse as they arrive. But it isn't a person. No one else could eclipse you. Only another world could do that. Has done that. How can I pretend I'm not going to slip away in a moment to chance my luck in a different drawing room. Maybe there I will find someone who outshines you, or at least helps me forget.