Halls of Memory: A Freeze-Frame in Time

Closing my eyes, I am transported to the Halls of Memory. I see myself drifting down dimly-lit corridors neatly lined with large, antique mahogany filing cabinets and card catalogs. My bare feet pad softly upon the swirl of black, grey, and white marble floors, flecked with bits of silver twinkling in response to the flickering of the oil lamps overhead, each flame surrounded by frosted glass flowers with a crystal cascade streaming down from the center of each chandelier. Row by row, I wander by each and every detail of my past and deeper into the labyrinth of my mind. The orderly rows begin to give way to a cluttered and disorganized section of yellowed yesterdays, drawers open and pages askew. The cool, predictable marble giving way to cracked and moss-covered steps, spiraling ever-downward into darkness. Accompanied by the flickering of candlelight, I begin my descent into that ancient and forgotten place. The spiraling of the steps lined with inlaid shelves covered in chaos and abandoned tears until my feet reach the end of the line and I am confronted by a barred and heavy steel door. The walls around me let out a flame-extinguishing breath, plunging me into darkness. I awaken to a sharp tug inside of my stomach, to a high-pitched and steady beeping, bound at the wrists. I am in darkness, upon a soft cloud, until my eyes flutter open to the brightest light I’d ever seen.

It was March 31, 1997 and the snow had been coming down perhaps for minutes or hours or days. I’d been through hell that day, an unspeakable hell that left me feeling as though I had run out of options. The end result was that I’d gone home and sought out each see-through-orange plastic cylinder that was wrapped in a label that wore my name: Klonopin, Ritalin, Zoloft, Tylenol with codeine, and Percocet. The storm outside, though growing steadily in intensity, could not even begin to match the one that was brewing inside of my mind. “No one loves me,” I thought, “and they’ll all be better off without me.” I felt so alone, isolated and abandoned, defeated to my very core. One by one, I emptied my month’s supply into my mouth and washed them down with milk and sadness, tears streaming down my face. I tucked the empty prescription bottle into my nightstand – a faux antique painted white with a wood pattern, adorned with antiqued gold on the beveled drawers and handles. I closed the drawer and made my way out of my bedroom before embarking on the descent down the stairs that felt like an eternity. The pills had begun to kick in as my legs brought me to the kitchen. My grandmother, five foot one and flaxen haired, stood at the stove making dinner, the smell of half-cooked pasta and spaghetti sauce filling the space. Her blue eyes sparkled back my reflection as I embraced her for the last time. “I’m sorry,” I barely squeezed out in a tiny whisper. She hugged me tightly as she responded, “I know.” Trying to hold myself together, I told her that I was going to lay down on the couch in the living room to take a nap. We exchanged “I love you” before I waded across the beige carpet to the long, gaudy, gold-upholstered sofa. I climbed into it and began to gently drift away.

I don’t remember a time before or since that I was ever so comfortable.

A shrill, desperate cry pierced through the mortal plane and found me in the twilight of purgatory and on the edge of my own death. “TARA, DID YOU TAKE ALL OF THESE PILLS!?” Her fear was a tangible thing that had come to accompany physical space in our home. She pounded down the stairs and appeared by my side, imploring me again, “Did you take these pills?” In the stupor that only a combination of medications in lethal doses could create, I frowned, “Yeah…I did. I did. I did and I’m scared. Mama, I’m scared.” In an instant, we were driving down the snow-covered road. When my eyes blinked open again, we were pulling into the parking lot of Melrose-Wakefield Hospital on Lebanon Street in Melrose. Apparently I had gotten out of the car because, next I knew, I was being offered a wheelchair at the entrance. I gratefully declined and walked into the sliding glass doors. I did not walk to the door or through the door, but directly into the part of the door that did not, in fact, slide. “Who put a window in the door?” I fell to the ground, my question never receiving an answer and woke up again as I was being wheeled past walls and floors, sterile white, and the brightest of lights looming above my head – one after another after another.

I don’t remember the series of events that immediately followed. I am almost sure I was awake, but lacking any cognizance as they slipped the tubing in my mouth, down my throat, and into my stomach; presumably scraping and scratching along the way. Soon I felt the slightly uncomfortable sensation of my stomach seemingly being torn out through a tube in my throat. It wasn’t pain that I was feeling, just a violent pulling deep inside of my body as my stomach was pumped. I didn’t gag on the tubing or the thick, gritty black liquid that was spilling into my mouth as it was being pumped into me.

The nurse was short-haired, perhaps blonde with a touch of grey, and small in stature. Her words were sudden and sharp, a bite from venom-tipped fangs. She wrinkled her face at me in a scowl of derision, “I find it disturbing that this doesn’t seem to bother you or hurt you at all.” I couldn’t respond with anything beyond what one would expect from someone with a couple feet of tubing shoved into their mouth. I let out a series of nonsensical, muffled vocalizations that only I could decipher. “I took two bottles of pain killers, what do you expect?” Or at least, that was what I had been trying to say. I wanted to be angry, to spit her venom back at her. I had heard tell of medical professionals being upset with people who attempt suicide, but I was sixteen-years-old and already felt as though the entire world was against me. Unable to muster the energy that indignation required, I simply began to cry as the comfort of the drugs began to give way to anguish and exhaustion.

A steady unidentified groaning permeated the air as I laid there in a daze, perhaps on another planet, drifting in and out of consciousness and my body. I tried to get up from the hospital bed and don’t know if it was the restraints or some chemical paralysis that had more power in keeping me there. As the blizzard picked up ferocity, I realized that I was the one who was groaning. After a time, and presumably medical clearance, I was moved to another room where I was left alone. I was no longer strapped to the bed, but now two guards were posted outside of my door – two guards that were having a dance-off in the hallway while I straddled the line between life and death in solemn silence. Like a cliché, I curled up into the fetal position and began to cry again. The snow had begun to fall an inch per hour as I lay there alive, but not living at all. My mind was too frazzled to allow me to sleep and I was too sedated to care, minutes faded into hours seemingly becoming an eternity.

I slip back through the big, barred steel door somewhere deep inside of my memory. I look back as the last of my tears roll down my cheeks. I take in a slow, calming breath through my nose, holding it before releasing it back through my mouth. My eyes open and I move on with my life, determined to live each day as if it were my last, vowing to help those who feel like they’ve lost all hope and the will to live. I shut the door on my darkest memories, if just for tonight.