Is a relationship more important because it's ending? You cannot treat any relationship like you are waiting for and expect it's end, but the moment you realize you see the horizon on a relationship you simply, without meaning to, adjust. You calculate, is there enough time to record this, do I have enough to record this. To simply take each glance and brush as imprint on the record disk of your skull so you may play the voices of ghosts once more. It's unpleasant, their presence pushed to past from present until you're left with an echo of who they were to you. An eventually stagnant image of that person who had so much left to teach you, to give to you. One of the things that's been attempted to hand to me is the concept of relation without attachment. Of loving without attachment. And I think I find that quite difficult. It does not mean that you do not feel as fully, that you do not cherish and look forward and enjoy the presence in your life. It is the concept that when that time is done you do not assign good or bad to the fact that it is done. It is a form of acceptance, and I've found myself in need of acceptance about a great number of people who are no longer in my life. I think I may not be able to hold back an assignment though. I cannot remove the ache and pain and subsequent fear and grief from losing you. I comprehend that removing attachment is not removing these emotions. I comprehend that these emotions are not inherently good or bad they simply are. But I cannot connect these related concepts to make the through line that is when you go I will not consider that a tragedy. I regret to inform you I'm not going to be able to learn one of the last lessons you're teaching me, for now. I will find peace, I have acceptance that this is happening. But I will not be able to remove the assignment of bad from the concept I will miss out on you. I will not be able to remove the assignment of good from the concept you're taking your health seriously and doing something about it. I will find balance between those concepts, I think. And that will be the closest I can currently come to not assigning bad or good is to assign them in equal measure. So you better live Damn healthily, because you've got a lot of missing to balance. But I want you to know, as gushy and as ridiculous as it sounds: I have painstakingly, deliberately, transactionally taken you into my memory. You are among many, many memories and people and thoughts and feelings as a kind observer. A gentle nudge. Accountability without judgement. I will not know much about you at all but I will know the ways you gently listened, sat through my tears and my rambling and my inappropriate stories and you gently coaxed me out of the scar tissue I could not see beyond. I will be better for the You I have incorporated. I will live better, from you. I will go on another twenty, thirty years maybe and I have been fundamentally shaped for the better from you. The cascading effect is enough to boggle the mind when you consider the sheer amount of individuals I've cared for and loved within the last decade. So with that, you give me hope that there's enough here. That it's just,, people in a circle, gently helping each other, slowly healing themselves, doing their best, and occasionally helpless to circumstance. There are certainly worse things out there, but never enough to stop us. Thank you, Erin. Take care of yourself and stay safe.
