The first door is easy, magical even. There is no marking on the door, but instinctively she knows and opens it. It leads her to her first adventure - her first best friend, her first crush, and her first bullies. The second and third doors are still easy to find; without much thought, she yanks them open each time, and there is always an adventure. She loves the thrill of new doors, the promise of something new - sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but always memorable.
But with each door, a sense of caution begins to grow. The carefreeness of yanking the doors fades. The weight of the bad doors affects her more, chipping away at her optimism, her confidence, her liberty. Her growing cautiousness causes her to hesitate, and suddenly she finds herself confronted by many doors, having to choose which one to open. With that choice comes a sense of regret, imagining how her life would be if she had opened the golden blue door. Regrets make her even slower, and she stands amidst thousands of doors, feeling lost - a strange and new sensation. It's new because suddenly she has no desire to open any of the doors. She slides and sits, starts comparing, thinking, planning. She sees failure, heartbreak, regret. These feelings ground her, paralyzing her. But the doors don't wait, and they stretch for kilometers into the horizon. Dread steadily climbs up, and for one crazy minute, she runs back and opens her old doors. But she always knew the rules, and she always understood them. Once out the door, that was it. But now it feels unfair, cruel even. There are certain adventures she wants to relive, people she wants to see again. She doesn't know if the thousands of new doors will lead her back to them or just further and further away.
Suddenly, it hits her - it couldn't be that bad to just wander. She has never really tried to explore the space. Admittedly, the space is empty, with nothing to see but an endless stretch of a variety of doors. But even the act of mindless exploration feels more doable. She decides that she could simply walk, walk, and walk until exhaustion either takes her life or compels her to be brave. It sounds a little less pathetic than sitting in a lifelike coma.
She gets up, heavy with indecisiveness, fear, and regret. The walk is slow; she is nearly trudging her feet. And she walks and walks, hoping for the courage to open a new door, to feel that fearlessness, that youthful optimism of the unknown.
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