The Girl in the Apartment with the Vaulted Ceilings

I can almost taste the Malbec on my own tongue, as if it were me drinking it, feeling the sharp warmth as it flows down my throat. Nine PM on January 2, 2019 and she's probably already tipsy from the wine while on her balcony as she looks to the moon and curses God. If I listen closely, I am sure I can hear her. She isn't being loud, she is aware of the neighbors around her but a harsh enough whisper can be heard fairly clearly by those who have a quiet mind. Her blue hair is thrown up into a messy bun, loosely held together by a fluffy scrunchy she got for Christmas. The air outside is clear and cold. The moon, the one she's cursing at, seems to be talking back to her.

She swears she won't drink as much wine tomorrow night, a resolution of sorts. Or more like crippling shame. It's just wine, but if those who looked up to her knew she was cursing the very same God she was praising the night before... well, she may very well be out of a job. Each week she stands up on a stage, watching as God answers everyone's prayers but her own. She knows He answers prayers, because every prayer she has prayed over someone has resulted in a miraculous fruition, which allows for good job security for her. She's got a gift. So they say. But every week she goes home and stares at her journal, full of requests of her own to the same God she prayed to for everyone else. The journal remains fairly empty. Her idea was that she would write out all her requests and fill the pages when they have been answered. The ink in her pen has ran dry as it was left out, waiting to be used to fill those lines with exclamation of miracles.

She was giving her all in the name of God and losing every ounce of herself in the process. She was an employee of His, but seemed to receive none of the benefits. This is the story she could never tell, though. She can't get up on stage and preach about how painful it is. She can't paint an image of the agony she feels for everyone to see. Only her journal would be allowed to see her tears because if others saw her raw and open wounds they might stop hoping for miracles just as she had.

The night air becomes too much for her to bare, she can tell by how numb her nose gets. The cold always attacks her nose and toes and unless she can get those warmed, she's done for. Inside she finds herself soaking in the walls around her. She loves this apartment. The high, vaulted ceilings, the stunning view of the city that is also decorated with enough trees to feel like a Hallmark movie. She's hardly decorated but this is her first home in years that has felt truly like home. If she could never leave, she never would. The walls see her brokenness and don't judge her. Her ceilings hold all her prayers and though they aren't answered, at least she knows they are going somewhere. Nine AM will come and the sun will dance through her windows, creating a form of art on her bare walls. She will pick up her empty journal and vow to keep trying. To keep trying to be better. Worthy of her prayers. She will forgo her humanness and strive for the perfection no one has ever attained.

I walked by her apartment today on my way to get the mail. She wasn't on the balcony but I knew she was somewhere still there. Maybe hoping to catch a glimpse of me?

I find myself walking by her balcony often, hoping to see her so I could tell her. I want to tell her that I still enjoy red wine, but these days I can barely finish a second glass. Acid reflux really sneaks up on you. I want to tell her she has to leave the apartment with the vaulted ceilings she loves so much. I want to tell her that the pain will actually get far worse. She will be stripped of everything she knew and loved and at rock bottom she will be stuck with nothing but herself. But she will get every single thing she ever wanted. And she'd be back.

It's nine PM January 2, 2025. I live in the same apartment complex, but on the first floor, so no vaulted ceilings. It's much bigger with a very similar view. My hair is blonde and thrown up in a claw clip. I just spent the evening baking cookies, brown butter brown sugar cookies, to be exact. And to make your mouth water. I am not alone, as she was. I am in this bigger apartment with normal ceilings with my husband. A man who saw beyond my ploy of false perfection and urged me to be my raw and true self. And he loved every inch of it.

We left the stage we tried so hard to be worthy of. I found an altar amongst ground level. I could be worthy by just simply existing as me. I'd like to think those vaulted ceilings held my prayers safely until I was ready to receive everything. When I was finally, fully, flawed and free.

Her balcony looks different these days. The new tenants have it with all sorts of plants. She no longer lives there, she lives with me. We are no longer striving for perfection and denying our humanness. We are working to just be better. Better than we were but still allowing us to be us. We got everything we wanted when the stage burned down and amongst the ashes we found that we were far more whole without it.