I watch her through the hazy window, curled up in her armchair with her dog soundly asleep next to her. I see her, staring at the lake or the sea birds, or even butterflies wandering between the overgrown milkweed and coneflower clumps she planted years ago, when she still had hopes and dreams, and felt a part of the world around her.
Sometimes, I stand silently across the room, watching her change, watching her world grow smaller and so much quieter. The loudest thing about her now is the colorful shirts she wears, the ones that are slowly fading from age.
She rarely speaks now about her future, her hopes, her dreams, because she seems to have lost those things some time ago. Her spirit has been crushed and revived too many times, and now, it just stays curled up tight in a ball that protects her, not from harm, but from hoping or trying too hard.
She used to write with flourish and vivacity, filling page after page with her thoughts and images, but lately the words have slowed, dully repeating old familiar topics.
She has no patience for long explanations about things in which she has no interest. She used to be intrigued by the world around her, the people who passed her way, and the ideas they brought with them. But lately, they are just part of the view, no more than the blades of grass in a yard, or the leaves that must be raked when autumn comes.
Sometimes, she stares at the screen on her desk for hours, her fingers flying as words become rapid-fire lines, only to delete her words, or leave the most non-descript of answers. Other times, she stares into the horizon, wondering how to respond, and knowing there is more she could say, more she could explain, more that she could do, but in the end her replies are brief and nondescript. Her responses are as dull as her once laughing eyes.
There are moments when she feels the urge to push back, to explain her perspective clearly and carefully the way she once would have. She can almost hear the argument forming in her mind, sentence by sentence, the way she used to lay things out so others might understand. But more often now, she lets the moment pass.
She nods along, agreeing politely, or simply changes the subject to avoid responding at all. It’s not that she suddenly has no opinions. It’s that the effort of explaining them no longer feels worth the energy it requires.
Her days have grown quieter in other ways as well. She spends most of her days and nights by herself now, and the solitude is no longer something she actively chooses so much as something that has slowly settled around her. Hours pass without conversation or interaction. Sometimes entire days slip by as she watches weeks and months drift past with little to distinguish one from the next.
Somewhere along the way, she stopped believing that explaining herself would make much difference. When she does try, the explanations feel thin and hollow, as though the words themselves have lost their strength before they ever leave her lips or are committed to paper. Perhaps, she lost her strength along the way, as well.
The distance she feels between herself and other people is difficult to describe, even for someone who once relied on words so easily. It’s not anger, and it’s not quite sadness; it’s something quieter than that. It feels like standing just outside everyone else’s lives, close enough to see the movement and hear the voices, yet somehow not fully part of it.
It’s like she’s standing outside a door, overhearing pieces of the conversation within. Listening to words not meant for her to hear, the faint whispers, the occasional word snatched from the air, she tries to grasp them, before realizing their tone and meaning is beyond her grasp.
And so, the days move forward in a quiet rhythm. She does what needs to be done, says only what she must, and lets many things pass without comment. Her days of righteous anger and battling windmills are over. The world continues to speak around her, but she is no longer a part of the whirl.
Her words no longer carry the spark they once did, nor the wild, living energy that once felt like the tang of the forest, the strength of the mountains, or the sharp freshness of a cool breeze on a humid day combined.
We have spent a lifetime watching the reflection in those eyes. Once there was magic there, a bright spark that danced like flames from a fire. That light is harder to find now.
We have watched her through that window for a lifetime, and still there are moments we barely recognize her. Over time, she has grown quieter, flatter somehow, like the still surface of the mirror where we see ourselves reflected. Her eyes are subdued, and the glint of hope that once lived there has softened into a quiet disenchantment.
She watches her reflection through the haze that has slowly settled over her life. Even as she recognizes what continues to unfold, she is left with the uneasy realization that her future is already laid out in the soft folds of well-worn sheets, soaked in sunlight, and yet hidden in the depths of a well-shaded room.