What would I do without you? I often thought of this when I looked at you or when I brought a bagful of what weighed on my mind to you. It was the only thing on my mind when I asked you for assistance on one of the many wars being waged inside my head—my mind has always been a tattered battlefield. You were the cavalry. Then one day, you did not arrive. They say the cavalry was always late, so I continued for a while, knowing all too well I only had to hold my ground. Then, it hit me like a bullet in the back—there was no cavalry. At least, not anymore.
And somehow, I dragged myself out of the no man’s land into the trenches I had dug on my own. Nothing left in me, barely breathing, holding out for hope: the cavalry may yet arrive. Lost in the daze of exhaustion, I dozed off, losing count of the days. I opened my eyes and saw nothing still. Alone, I crawled through the trenches until I found myself away from it all. I climbed out of the pit and into the forest. Struggling to walk in the labyrinth of my blurry thoughts, of my befuddling state of mind, of the maze of confusion, I somehow managed.
Time passed, and the wars in my head had all but ended. The end was all closing in, and I sat by myself. At least, that’s what they thought. I spent time alone, but the ghost of expectation was with me. The memory of being left behind was the undertone of all I did. I sat alone with it, and we talked over and over about the same things. The question still weighed on my mind: what would I do without you? And then, slowly, I found an answer. Perhaps, it wasn’t even the correct answer, but I had come this far, and there was more to life now than the memory of you.
What would I do without you? I would go on for as long as I could. For most things, that much was enough.