I suppose the title is self-explanatory. Now and again, for reasons that wouldn’t make sense to anyone but me, I remember someone (several someones, really) that I thought would be “here” much longer than life and circumstances wound up supporting. I think of them and wish that I could still share with them as I once did, but also that I could know they are well and happy. There are more than a few I wish I could share my recent delights and successes with, several that I wish I could once more collaborate and create with, and one specifically that I wish I could just tell how glad I was that they were present and part of what I know as life.
Most of these someones simply drifted over the horizon. A small few were less amicable in parting. I catch myself wondering how I might have manage differently, but ultimately it is of no use; Suffering begins where such wondering is allowed and I think I’ve had enough of that particular kind of suffering. Still, I do think of them and miss them and hope they are well. I suppose, beyond the moment of an ending, that’s really all one can do…. remember the things that made their presence beautiful, smooth and soothe the things that caused less enjoyable emotions, and remind myself that all blames are shared.
I do not often walk this particular stretch of ground; The charnel yard is most often a place for transforming things, not clinging to them. I don’t think I’m quite ready to see them shifted from the forms and feelings I have associated with them over time, though I readily admit I likely should be. It occurs to me as well that, were I to manage that readiness, perhaps it would pave the way to some far-flung future moment in which new beginnings might arrive. The notion of such a thing, free from all hurts, is pleasant to consider, but I am less hopeful than I used to be and, these days, such thoughts bring a grimace more than a smile.
It seems I am no less hopeful, even if I am much more embarrassed for it. It is a certain, terminal flaw to be so certain that reconciliation and recovery are always possible. This is not how life works. Not in my experience. Why then, do I have such certainty? The whisper from the corner, a name given both with humor and the edge of derision, “idealist.”
I still cannot truly judge it a worthless trait. Obviously.
cycles of life and being
impermanent, change like seasons
tendrils gone to brush then to seed
some, root and revive memory
new experience in similar form, yet
not the same and for it, lacking, yet
not the same and for it, learning, if
one might see past the veil of before
sight is not insight, apparently,
the mind sees what it thinks it knows
and only over time, finds knowledge
but even this, mobius and infinite
another pattern, repeating until
the thought occurs – there is
no knowledge, only experience
and it is never hindered but by
the tug of memory, insisting
upon what it thinks it knows
rather than what it finds to be
perhaps, in many ways,
to be an idealist is to insure
the ideal is never realized.
The ghosts of friendships past bring many lessons and they do so with a calm, patient persistence that I would admire if they were anywhere but in my own head. We carry everything we ever need to learn and to grow. What a silly thing that it sometimes takes so long to manage it.