I’m still not sure I’m ready to write this, but let me get some of it down. The topics vary, but they tie in like those bubbles I mentioned that float around; sometimes you can catch two together and make them pop into one, and on and on.
In a long phone conversation with a very dear friend yesterday, the idea of life purpose, letting go and moving onward came up. This, along with death and possibilities of again, moving on. She doesn’t believe in anything coming after except new life apart from one’s own. Children perhaps being the only tie to a life that’s gone. We spoke of James Joyce, of Boethius and of the Catholic religion. We spoke of our own relationship through the decades and who we’d known. We spoke of what we needed to let go of except to live in memory.
She’s helped me through a lot, knows every secret. She knows my mood swings and the deep blue funks I like to hang in. This week, I stepped away from a magazine project that was dear to me because it was for writing, writers; something I’d been proud of until it looked like pride may have been unfounded as it is reborn. It has become to those who shall carry it forward just a pretty piece of propaganda. I could see the writing on the wall and felt the pressure, the walls boxing in even as they expand outward, and I could do nothing to settle them back in their footings. She said like friends we’ve known, situations and events become a memory and past achievements can’t be carried around forever. Even they become a heavy load. So I change "current" to "past" on a useless resume and wonder if this was my last hurrah.
I tend to be a clinger. While I move on to new things I want to still have a grasp on what is done and over. I just wasn’t ready this time to move along. But this is my nature; I will buy a new toothbrush because I see the old one is badly smashed in curling bristles. The new one will sit there waiting on the bathroom counter for another month or two.
Maybe there’s a comfort zone I need. Maybe there’s a need for validation. Going back to school was terrifying until I realized I could excel. For me there was no moving onward from there to a career–hell, I cannot even get a job.
Last night too I wondered about all the words I’ve written here; two and a half years, close to three thousand postings. I’ve been meaning since the fall to make a copy of the weblog for my files–I used to do that automatically before–because the hard drive crashed and who knows what the internet will do to all my archives. But really, who cares? Here are only thoughts and conversations. They would not be down in writing or in any form meant to endure. I myself don’t even read them, though in looking through them quickly I do see changes in myself. But should these be hung out in the great cosmic space for someone to bump into while seeking Cheever for a paper? My words, like me, are transient in this life. Someone else will take my place without a moment’s reflection.
Boethius reminds me that nothing much here matters much at all.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology