for a friend.

There comes a time. No there comes many times, in which the wind is taken from our sails, the wells dry up and the feast of life seems a moment shy of rotten. We invest ourselves into projects, into people, into ideas of whom we may be and because of this we are often times led astray and often times disappointed. The idea of letting go can seem somewhat like failure. It can seem possibly that we didn’t try hard enough, the deck was stacked against us, the universe is malicious. An old lover has told me that the key to life lies in perspective. The secret is an almost magician like ability to shift your perspective. To see the world one way this moment and then decide to see differently the next. Your perspective must be tended to. It must be watered and nurtured and have the freedom to change like the seasons. It is so much easier to write this than it is to perform this. I know. I have been there many a times. It can feel close to impossible to view something so gut wrenching and so life altering as positive, that the mere suggestion by your friends forces you to close your heart and white knuckle your hands. Fear not. I could tell you things get better. Better doesn’t change pain. Better doesn’t dry up tears and Better doesn’t help you drink that bottle of wine. No, Better is a far shot from right now. The only thing I can say is to sit with pain. Sit with it and hold it’s hand and let it be there for you. There is no shame in letting go and there is no shame in pain. Days will peel by, then months, then seasons and some day far from now you will wake up and the pain will be more like a shadow and less like a personality. It will fade away like chalk after a light rain. Day by day it dwindles until the memory is nothing more than a letter to a friend who feels the way you once did.

“…be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. And when you resent the ache in your heart, remember: You will be dead and buried soon enough.”   -Tinkers, Paul Harding

remember who you are.