Truths of Old

... and as time passes, I become less important.
And then the truth becomes easier to tell.

*****
It was strange, listening to her giving voice to the thoughts that he had long thought about her; that he had even written about on his other private blogs.

He sat in the glare of the midday sun on the ground (earning curious stares) and listened, oblivious to the world around him.

The words didn't matter for once, as much as the thought behind them :
You are a prisoner in your own mind of your own device.

He didn't become angry; he knew what she was trying to do. He'd tried it many a time, only his friends had become angry - and some had stopped being friends as a result. He understood her intention, and in a way, it was a strange form of kindness.

He set down the sword in his soul, and allowed the onslaught to overrun him...

*****

From another place and another time :

"This woman, this fragile creature telling me about her year from hell and the loss of the love of her lifetime was beautiful, too.
Not pretty, which is the word I reserve for good-looking strangers, or very pretty which is the term I reserve for good-looking friends.
But beautiful...
...something from my past stirred me and wanted to reach out and touch her face, let her know it'd be all okay, to be strong. That she was too good for all this... mundanity.
Except that this sadness she was relating to me wasn't of my doing.
And I could do nothing to repair it.
And there was no point lying to her; we are all of us trapped in the prisons of our own heads.
And I knew her now; she was someone very like myself. We circle in our jail cells fretting, regretting, reminiscing, all the while seeing out the windows and cynically watching the world. We even see that the door isn't really locked and the cell isn't guarded, but we stay anyway, hurting by ourselves. We don't let other people in easily, and only by our choosing - not theirs.
I stayed my hand."

*****
So, to the Dozer,

you made me think a lot.

The picture has never been clear for me.

I don't believe that I did put Her on a pedestal. There was a time when I was afraid I was doing just that. Each time, I willed myself to forget, to demean, to trivialise her memory.

Each time she came back, She was more than I remembered.

There was a time as well when She was afraid that I was doing just that. She showed me her faults, and warned me of her flaws. They completed her.

I wrote much of it down - and yes time has dimmed my memory. And yes, I know that memories are highly selective. Did you watch The Final Cut? (Robin Williams) I did.
But re-reading what I wrote reminds me. So much so, that I do not re-read any longer. That time is past now.

Bumping into her cousins occasionally, and hearing them wax lyrical about Her makes it hard to pretend that She wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

And yes, there were the other saps.

(I remember watching them in sec 3, and feeling the third party fly on the wall. I remember how close they were then, how he bent in when he wanted to speak to her. I remember watching, from afar, and feeling an odd tinge of jealousy and sadness. For he was my friend, too. I knew.
And yet we spoke frequently, She and I, nearly every night on the telephone. And that was enough for me. I loved being Her friend. I loved Her - though I could not acknowledge it.
And years later, it was we who were still friends.

So perhaps She was an expert conwoman.

But I knew Her, and you did not. And if She was a conwoman... She didn't know she was doing it.

Perhaps you are correct and I will never give anybody else a chance; perhaps She will forever be my yardstick upon which to fall back.

I would rather believe that there will come a day when another stranger will arrive in my life, and impress me as much - or perhaps more so, than she.

But it is difficult. Time passes. We lose our way, and sometimes we forget what we wanted. Sometimes it is only when we are astray that we remember who we wanted to be, and what we wanted in life.

I acknowledge - as I have done for quite a while - that we are changed now. It has been a long time. I am changed, at the very least.
We are strangers now.

I did this. And it was my intention from the first goodbye.

I do regret it.

Who in his right mind wouldn't?

And as to your advice that I should seek Her out and ask for a resumption of friendship :

I would like nothing better. But I... have neither the words, nor the way.

*****
Dearest Karin,

I don't quite know what to say to you.
I've often wondered if you read me. And always known that you probably don't. Life where you are is so far removed from the rest of the world; it would be rather bizarre if you were to be doing something as mundane and trivial as perusing blogs.

Maybe that's part of the reason I've always wanted to live there... laugh.

You'd probably marvel at how weird it is I have the time to write at all.

I never sent you the URL to this page, or to any of the other more private pages I have, because it would not have been decent to do so. It would be a form of intrusion to force my thoughts upon you - of all people.

Perhaps that is why I stayed silent once, a long time ago when you ranted at me; and perhaps that is why I fumed a little when you told me how J first got together with you by telling you to shut up for a while.

I never did manage to forget you... but that is a You from another time, and another place. We spoke recently, and it was more apparent than ever how much we had become utter and complete strangers. I drove aimlessly across the country for a quite while after that; I think perhaps I just needed to run; perhaps I just needed to grieve. At a past so completely, and utterly cast away - by me.

I think I burnt those bridges because I was afraid of myself. And my irrational propensity for falling in love with you again, and again. And now I cannot return to my past, my objective is clearly achieved.

I wish there had been some other way. Really, I do.

Because it came at the cost of a friendship I'd always valued above anything else I ever had. You were good, and clean, and decent. Not spotlessly clean, and not angelically good. But somehow I became a better person around you. Perhaps cleanliness rubs off. laugh.

Thank you for trying to give me chances to undo my stupidity, those many years ago. Thank you for your email, asking that I not excommunicate you any longer. And for that invitation to your Christmas party, years later.

This silence has been bad for me; and I think you were right. I should have stayed on, like J; perhaps I would have grown out of love with you, the way I have done now... and we could have remained.

I did not, because I did not want to be like J - or to compete in the shadows with him. I could not lurk and wait till you were vulnerable enough for me to try my luck on you. Nor could I watch him do it.

I was a fool then.

I think perhaps I am still a fool now.

But I am a fool who has found - or perhaps permanently and intentionally lost his way.

It feels far, far too late now.

But this is me, asking you if we could get back in touch again.