Bound in Flames

Bound in Flames

Fire is an enigmatic thing for me--a fix for everything that I need to purge from my life. I can release all of my burdens into angry purgatory in a glorious stream of reds and oranges. The warmth has been there to comfort and hold me each time I needed to expel all my pent-up struggles and worries. Its addictive grasp has had an iron-like grip on me and still does to this day.

When I was 16 my group of friends and I decided to band together and liberate all of our pent-up anger and other emotions that we kept bottled up. Whether it was crippling anger toward a bully or complete resentment toward an ex-friend, we all wanted them to just go away so we could move on. All of us just wanted to reach serenity again so that we could live life without being held back by exhausting emotions. We just wanted a fix, whether that be temporary or permanent; it didn't matter to us. As a collective, we decided our best option was to write everything we wanted to discard, no matter how small, and burn it all.

As a group, my friends and I have been through a lot together. They're the sole reason why I still have hope for meeting and creating new friendships with other people. Since I was younger I've made friends but they never seemed to stick with me for much time. From the small drama-filled girl group in middle school to the tight-knit trio I had in 8th grade, they all seemed to drift from me within a span of a year. I'd put it off as them wanting to find new people to spend their time with but regardless, it instilled a deep routed fear of abandonment in me.

The night my friends and I decided to purge our unwanted emotions we spent hours writing every little detail of each experience we wanted to move on from. To get the full experience for myself I decided to write a letter to each person I resented for besmirching or throwing my life into disarray, that way, I could say everything I wanted without having to speak a word to them. By the time I was finished, I had about two pages full for each person I wanted out of my mind and each of my friends had their own fill as well. Puffy-eyed and drained, my friends and I hugged each other for a while that night.

The following morning we all decided that the best place to perform the "ritual", or what we liked to call it, was at our usual hangout spot: a small clearing near the woods of my backyard. With a small picnic table and blacktop surrounding it all, it was the best place to burn all of our unwanted burdens. The weather that day was nothing special-cloudy and on the colder side, but it added the ideal atmosphere for what we were planning on doing.

The walk up to our spot was just about silent. The distant rustle of leaves and the periodical chirping of birds were all that kept it from being mind-numbingly quiet. I could feel my heart racing as I was prepping myself to let everything I'd been holding in for years out. As a casual breeze flew by us every so often, our papers that were clutched in our hands would rustle and remind us that our hard work would be paid off soon. Each step leading up to the familiar blacktop sent waves up my legs, I couldn't wait to let all of this out with the closest people I had in my life.

Once we reached our spot each of us sat down on top of the picnic table and held out our papers, all taking a collective deep breath. Not knowing who should go first we all looked at each other until I volunteered to read everything I wrote aloud. While doing so I stood up and faced my friends and read every last word I wrote on the small stack of papers I held. Everything washed out of me like a swarm of bees buzzing away from a broken hive. All the hatred, regret, and sorrow I had to endure over the years were being disposed of and I could feel warm tears trickle down my cheeks as I read every last word. I will never forget the look my friends had on their faces when I finished reading everything, the look of utter shock and dejection. At that moment we all knew that this event was what was going to hold our group together for the rest of our lives.

Journaling has been a therapeutic coping mechanism for me for as long as I can remember. Writing down everything that has bothered me or just anything I needed to process some more gave me so much release. However, I never knew how much communicating anything like that to close, trusted people in my life would relieve me. Being able to dispel anything that I'd bottled is a phenomenal feeling, but being able to process it with the people I care about is something I'll never disregard again.

After all of us finished reading everything we wrote we were all deduced to a puddle on the side of the road. We all just ripped ourselves open for each other and as a collective spoke everything that was unspoken prior to today. The crushing atmosphere that once was was lifted and all of us were reaching mental peace like we sought to do. The only thing left to do was rip our papers to shreds and burn them.

The ritual that my friends and I performed that day was the one thing that has stuck with me for this long. It taught me the importance of moving forward with my life without holding grudges over people or things that I've been through. Although, yes, hardships happen, if you can move past that and continue to see through the fog on the window you'll be able to see the luminosity that life has to offer.

As I was shuffling all of our paper scraps into a pile, I picked up one of them and held it up above the pile. When the piece was lit I dropped it into the pile and we all stood around to watch it all light up. As the fire spread across each of the scraps the flame shot up like a fountain of yellows and oranges. While we all felt the warmth from the flame we huddled together and watched the paper diminish to ash. We all took a sigh of relief as we realized our group was now bound together for life. Bound in flames with the ash of our past finally behind us.