Too much loss, too much death

I wrote this yesterday as a letter to the philosopher. Sending it to him would have been a big mistake - first of all because I doubt he has any desire to hear from me and second because in any case I feel like I still owe him the rest of the summer without any threat of disruption by me. He has no idea how much he hurt me, but I still want to protect him. I don't want to do anything to threaten his ability to write.

I wrote this yesterday, but was distracted from sending it by an insidious series of e-mails from a very persistent friend. It's best I didn't send it, but I still feel the need to say these things, and this is my journal now, so here it is. There is a lot of pain in here, at the end of a week that has been both fun and painful - and not the kind of pain that a submissive slave kitten craves. There have been way too many tears, and they don't show signs of stopping any time soon.

The world can be an ugly place.
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L--- got the news this afternoon that someone we knew from work was killed in a murderous Taliban attack while on a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan.

Yesterday I heard that someone else we knew suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack two weeks ago.

Another friend is dying of cancer and has maybe a couple of weeks to live. Her husband came here earlier in the week to bring assorted items that she is selling and giving away.

There is too much loss. It sneaks up on us. It surrounds us. It jumps out at us from behind bushes. Death is unavoidable.

And all of it makes me think of you.

I miss you like hell. I loved you, which I suppose was my mistake. It was a love you didn’t want, a love that just complicated your life. It was a relationship that just complicated your life, a mistake, an accident, and I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry for that.

But I miss you like hell, and I hear about all these deaths and all I can think of is what a waste. What a waste not to grab life and love when it’s there. Because you never know when the chance will be snatched away from you.

Yes, I know it’s silly to be saying these things relative to you. If you saw me as no more than a diversion that got out of hand, a disruption that added nothing to your life but complications, then there was, there is, nothing to be grabbed. It never existed.

And that is very hard for me to believe.

Then again, I suppose I am easily fooled.

I miss you like hell. I loved you. I still do, which shows how stupid I am. I’m your friend and I thought you were mine, and it feels crazy after a year and a half to suddenly have nothing.

And I swore to myself that I wouldn’t contact you but then I heard about our friend in Afghanistan and all I could think of was you and the waste of loss.

Please forgive me.


Thursday 14 August 2008