"Trembling on a rocky ledge"

I wanted to be alone.

But I have no idea for how long. Sometimes you tell yourself it's always going to be that way. Lonely. For ever. The first time, it just felt like no one could ever find the way to me. I didn't want any one to, actually.

After a while, I boarded up that gate and planted a garden. People still talked to me from across 'the fence', little knowing there was a gate under the creepers. They thought I lived alone. They were right. I did.

But let's go back to the first time. That gate was open. People came through it. Most didn't want to stay. Sometimes they passed by on their way to somewhere else, always more important. People always came to see someone else. I wanted to shut the gate and open it only to people I wanted to see. But no one ever came.

One day I boarded up the gate. It was scary as ever........I hardly knew how to handle the fact that no one COULD ever come in through the gate ever again. I guess I got tired of waiting, and hoping, and expecting, and something inside just snapped. I never heard it, but something inside broke without a sound. It's like that when you smile at people as if everything's okay, and die inside, when you can tell no one that you want to open a door but are too scared to. It's basically soundless. But it is life-changing. No one may see or know.

I can remember wanting to end it. I didn't.

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If you're holding on today, dear little child, whoever you are ......... don't close any doors.

Someone will come. If it means waiting, you will be given strength. You've come to the pass; if something breaks, let it. If you are bruised, so be. But it's not over. This will pass, but you are eternal. And someone will come.

Someone will come.

Crumple in a corner, let tears fall. You've come to the pass. This is no time to throw it away. This is no time to give up. Someone will come. Leave those doors alone. If you close them now, it would all have been for nothing.

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I finally did open the gate. Someone did come. Someone who came to see me and not someone else. Someone who wasn't passing by on the way to someplace else. Someone who had started out to come to me and did.

Sometimes I still think of those days. Trembling, shivering alone on the brink and about to fall. The chill comes back.

But someone is here. The doors are open, the gate's open. And we sit together......and I can talk. I don't have to be alone.

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Thank you for helping me write this - you know who you are.

Songs come back from those days, like they do from most times of my life. It's amazing (and somewhat scary) that I don't remember too many people; I remember songs. I heard this in 1990...... it is supposedly about the nuclear age or something like that. I don't know. To me, it always was about a battle with oneself, always tempted to give up and end it.....and how there's no honour or heroism in ending it, and how you're utterly, utterly alone in your choice (and no one as alone as I). You've got to come back to fight, if you're any of a worthy soldier.



It's not as if this barricade blocks the only road
It's not as if you're all alone in wanting to explode
Someone set a bad example - made surrender seem all right
The act of a noble warrior who lost the will to fight

And now you're trembling on a rocky ledge
Staring down into a heartless sea
Done with life on a razor's edge
Nothing's what you thought it would be

No hero in your tragedy
No daring in your escape
No salutes for your surrender
Nothing noble in your fate
What have you done?

All of us get lost in the darkness
Dreamers learn to steer by the stars
All of us do time in the gutter
Dreamers turn to look at the cars
Turn around and turn around and turn around
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Turn around and walk the razor's edge
Don't turn your back and slam the door on me

- Neil Peart (from "The Pass")