Memories Are All That's Left

Property of Stormberry

A couple of days have passed that are proven to be emotionally straining. I'm trying to come up with a better word, but honestly, I can't. Ever since November 17th, when a chance meeting with an old friend, I had been feeling emotionally restless. We talked for much longer time than usual, and they unloaded quite a heavy burden that changed the way I saw many things about them. I also opened up a lot about them, and was rather brutally honest about some things that had perspired in the past. Those things weren't pretty things, but rather unveiled a dark side of my heart. To this day I have no certainty about how they took in that information.

There have also been issues at home, where my brother is going through some family issues and we are doing what family does in times like this: gather up tighter and hold up the one that needs most support. There have been other straining issues that might have grinded on my nerves due to the second hand pain I've been exposed to, and then comes the meeting and getting closer to people who might be romantically interested in me. Or are and I just don't want to acknowledge it for what it is.

Property of Stormberry

The truth is, I think I don't like the idea of me in a romantic relationship. I do have been in them, and I do have loved my partners, but I think those times are well past before me, and though I might be attracted to the people I'm going out with and seeing, I'd rather have the friendship and forgo the romance. Or could it be that I'm not that much into either of them? Or is it that maybe my friend's issues are taking an undue amount of my thoughts and that's keeping me from finding my balance and concentrating on what's really important - this being me feeling good?

I've been pondering in this a lot.

Normally, I have always cautioned my friends from getting too wrapped up in other people's issues, and look at me, getting all wrapped up in the personal problems of my friend. Not like I can solve them, nor like it would be my place. So why I am being sucked into their clusterfuck? Well, because I have the feeling that the time left on our friendship is quickly coming to its end.

I don't know precisely how to explain this, but this has been the dynamic of our life encounters since forever, and so I have now the feeling that soon we are to part ways and a couple of decades will pass before we see each other again, if ever. Not like we share much, but we have shared some deep stuff, and so they feel like a sort of comrade or a fellow soldier in the battlefield of life. I have made some notes about them and as I was recording some events, I came to the realization that, people come and go, but the memories that we keep from them often times remain with us much, much longer. Like feathers of a bird, they are a small part of the whole bird, but they remain with those who have collected them long after the bird has past.

We are to part soon, and I wonder if this is also the reason why I seem to be trying to collect their feathers by handfulls, as if I could stuff a pillow with them, to rest my head on them at night.