i thought of you today. first time in some time i have done so. it was an odd thing, this thinking. i remember when thinking of you immediately resulted in anger, resentment, grief, and sorrow.
none of these were present today. rather, i thought of you and it was like remembering a story told by another, some ‘friend of a friend’ story; a madcap series of miscommunications, a comedy of errors turning more tragic with each one as they layered like onion skin over one another… creating in their opaque, closing sheets little more than tears.
heh. i chuckle at that. oh, little onion, stewing with all the juices of bygone days, steeping in sangria and self-loathing, was it so terrible that i wanted to you to smile? unforgiveable sin, to wish you free of the barbed wire in which you writhe?
forgive me, i did not know you so enjoyed it. forgive me the terrible assumption that relief and peace and contentment would be preferred. you so often said, ‘not this life’ and while it took me some time to understand you meant it, once i did, i too, bowed and departed.
forgive me the delay. it is never easy to watch another suffer, and i am too ignorant at times to understand or to be readily willing to accept that it is preferred.
a heavy-handed stranger delivered a lesson to me, though i did not know it at the time. they said to me that most people flinch and withdraw from compassion because it touches tender places, opens old wounds, and is often a painful thing.
the analogy that arrived here was something on the order of lancing wounds, cauterizing them, or perhaps leeching them. old methods all, of course, clumsy in their delivery and often very painful indeed.
i remember how many times you said i was unskillful. it implied intent that was never present beyond a vague hope toward benefit. i remember how many times your friend thought to paint that tender wish into a cankerous, malignant thing. i remember how you eagerly agreed it must be so… perhaps it was too painful to see it otherwise… daylight through barbed wire, a thing in which you have no interest.
i will share here that both of you have taught me so much. with all humbleness, i honor you for such teaching. even as i for some time cursed you both quite easily for it.
i realize now that those accusations of arrogance were condemnations of yourself. i see that the willingness here could only be interpreted as the arrogance you castigate yourself for having and holding – that you could ever manage to benefit another.
as if such things should ever be more than tenderly honored in yourself, in others.
as if, even in your self-absorbed, self-loathing frenzy, you did anything other than benefit me most fully, completely.
i wonder if that is a thing you would be willing to see. likely not, i suppose. ah, there is the ache…. compassion. i know it now, thanks to you, sincere thanks, for all i know you would never see it so.
this, my rambling to myself, is both an offering to the universe and another reminder, me to myself. it is not my way to ‘forget’ things. to many, it seems an oddness bordering on unhealthy, i suppose. but i continue to use these thoughts and memories to corral myself, to compare, contrast, and challenge… to learn.
i have considered it a time, the choice to remember, to reiterate and sand myself with it. you and your friend point to it as inappropriate, i simply ask, ‘who are either of you to say what is appropriate?’
it was never a question you could answer. and, of course, i ask myself on your behalf, granting you benefit of a doubt here, in my mind, that you could never quite resist slashing at in reality. silence and distance grants many things, most of which were quite unintentional in the moment of its inception. thank you anyway.
i wrote earlier today of my tender, sweet valentine. and i suppose it is only proper and right that i thank as well you, my most bloody valentine. were it not for you, i would be unable to appreciate him, cherish him, tenderly accept and embrace him.
were it not for the lessons of how to remain and be kind and giving even in the face of barbed wire and unkindness, callous disdain and condemnation, i likely would not have found the patience for which he most gently thanks me, or the compassion, or the boundless love that i so jubilantly and freely give to him.
it may seem a heavy thanking, but it is not. it is light as a feather, soft as a cloud, merry as the river, and free as sunlight. i do thank you. always and in all ways, i thank you. thank you and thank you and thank you, for it is because of you that this is.