Two Reflections

How grateful I was then to be part of the mystery, to love and to be loved.
Let's just hope that is enough.

- "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love And Be Loved)", Bright Eyes


Part One

I am approaching one year since I ended a six-year relationship. That event marked a clear break in my life, the last year being filled with new experiences, new thoughts, new feelings, new people, many different than what my life had been made of the year before. I've been filled with joy at all the wonderful people that have entered my life even as I fight the sadness that results from the ongoing realization that I may have permanently lost a friend.

Part Two

It's the end of the academic year. My life, since before I can remember, has revolved around that year. Given my current job and location in Corvallis, it still does.

I have always struggled to handle the fact that many of my friends will, inevitably and for a variety of reasons, move away, something that happens, also inevitably, in the summer. It was hard when I started college without them around; it was hard when they started graduating; it's hard now, when I'm out of school.

This year, it's been much worse than in the past. I know I'm not the only one dealing with this, but - to invert a question a question I asked of a friend earlier today - how do you communicate the emotional depth and weight of sadness, of a feeling of loss? How can I communicate to others what they mean to me, what I've gained from my time spent with them, what I want to offer them in support and friendship and love, what I've learned from watching them move beautifully through the world? Anything I can think of to say seems wholly inadequate.

Right now, I am at a loss. I only know that it hurts, and that there will be more pain, and that I will make new friends, and that we will share in each other's happiness, and that they, too, will eventually leave, and I will hate the world again for doing this to me.

I am trying to remember how much fun I've had, and what it's like to get together with an old friend, and sometimes that works. Tonight? Not so much.