The Doors We Close

Today, I did something that I always thought I'd never do: I locked myself out of a house.
I was just going to the neighborhood store, to get something to eat while doing schoolwork. With some cash in my pocket, I locked the doorknob and closed it behind me, only to realize that I forgot to bring the keys with me.
The shock hit me like a cold wave. I turned to the door slowly, and prayed that everything I did for the past ten seconds didn't happen. Twisting the knob, I held my breath. Clunk, clunk. I was shut off from the inside.

Good thing I have a relative who lives nearby, otherwise I would have been staying in front of the house for the whole day. The thing is, the experience was some sort of metaphor for me. It made me start thinking of the many 'doors' I have closed and locked in my life. Oftentimes, these doors are relationships and opportunities, some doors being open, as they are always present in my life. The doors that are closed are relationships that need to be rekindled, and those that are locked are the ones that I can never return to.

There aren't many open doors in my life. I have a tendency to close each door as soon as I see another one open. I'm not good at keeping friendships alive, I'm not good at catching up and all that jazz. Once people leave, they're closing the door to my life. Sometimes it stays that way.

Sometimes, the doors we close are the ones that we just open for a moment, and seeing that behind it isn't what we want, or what we expect, so we close them immediately, not giving it a second look. The doors remain closed, and what lies behind them are never fully discovered because of a nasty first impression, or because they just didn't make much of an impact. Sometimes, when you're looking for something, they hide behind that closed door, waiting for you to find them, to open the door and pick them up. To say something as silly as 'Found you!' and lead them out. But the door stays closed and we end up looking for things that aren't what we were looking for in the first place but are good enough (although the thing with good enough is that it's never good enough).

Sometimes, the doors we close get locked up for various reasons. Sometimes, we lock them on purpose, or by accident, or we are locked out. We lock them up, never to return to the room it leads to, hoping that what it contains never gets to you. Most of the time, these locked doors are conscious choices, thought hard about and mentally debated. But sometimes,these doors happen by accident (like what happened to me today). When you realize your mistake, you turn the knob, hoping that by the nth turn it becomes unlocked. Or you bang the door and scream, thinking that whoever is in the other side can hear, hoping they open the door, knowing that it was a mistake. And maybe, in a desperate attempt, you break the door, thinking that everything will be OK. But it's not because there's obvious damage, and shards and splinters all around. Yeah, it's open. But it's not the same anymore. You tell the person at the other side "I'll fix it" but you both know that the 'fixing' isn't going to do much, and then you realize that maybe it was a bad idea. Maybe you should have kept the door locked.

Oftentimes, the doors we close are by choice. Some are good decisions, and some are bad. But the thing about these doors is that although you have closed and locked some of them, there are a whole lot of open doors waiting for you. It's basically up to you whether to keep them that way.