“You do understand that if he’s as fearful and insecure as this makes it sound, the last thing he’ll ever do is actually reply, right? It would be like confirming himself and, of all things, that could not be endured.” I nodded and slowly sipped my coffee as I ruminated on the various bits of analysis and how it all built the shape of things far better than words ever could, ever would. In some places, an hour is as good as a day is as good as a month, a year, or a lifetime. But I found relief in it, because it meant the conclusions were sound as well as valid, even if never to be more than theorized.
My friend sighed and half-chuckled, “It seems you and I have the same kind of karma.” I grimaced and eventually laughed along with him; what else may be done, really? It is what it is and, candidly, it only bothers or aches when I focus on it; all rude probing of sore spots or rough inspection of shiny, tender skin. I am reminded of my friend in Florida (yet another J!) and how we used to wear thumbrings as a happy and somewhat defiant symbol of our universal nose-thumbing toward these same things. (Perhaps it should have been finger-raising, but since it was the thumb rather than the middle finger….) I still have that ring; I admit, however, I lost the sense of a need to wear it quite a while ago.
It’s all reflection, of course. The casual paging through memory prior to setting the sheaf upon the fire. I find a certain affinity for “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” and not in the morbid sense that the phrase might imply. Rather, a winsome tribute to beginnings and endings and the happy realization that one leads to another to another; this is true right to the point at which what we know as “The End” arrives and, I suspect, continues merrily beyond that, too (a maddeningly stubborn mystery).
Tonight, my mind is like a reel of film left upon the projector; stray end of that final frame flapping lightly, turning and turning until I remember to flip it off. (There’s that finger again… hrm.)
In other, unrelated news, I had something of an epiphany about work today. In the middle of a late afternoon meeting, it hit me brain like lightening and I’m not sure I managed not to giggle. For some, it’s a meaningful effort; for some, it’s a chore-like mandate; for some, it’s a mindless monotony; for some, it’s a game. I can’t tell you why that made me giggle (yet), but it has to do with realizing that one can shift their motivations as easily as anything else.
Anyway… not much more to say. The sinuses are finally beginning to behave themselves, I’m once more contemplating letting the cloves go, and I’m mildly giddy for the arrival of the approval letter from which an offer this Friday will manifest. I am relaxed, mildly excited (not a contradiction), and contentedly pathing slow, widening circles of patience.