Sept. 9, 2004 - Loss
Have you ever lost something important? I have. I’ve lost my wallet a few times, my mind on occasion, and people. One never goes through life with the intention of losing anything, but the loss of a person has happened to me more times than I care to count. It’s become a ridiculous pattern that I cannot escape, like riding a Tilt-O-Whirl for 25 continuous years. That ride always made me nauseous; I even had to make the operator stop the damn thing to let me off once. But in this pattern of loss I am the operator, and I never read the manual on how to make it stop.
Seeking blame for this loss of personal connection has been a major factor in my psyche for a very long time. I’ve never admitted my role in the loss of anyone. It’s always been someone else’s fault. Never mine, never ever. But I’m at a place in my life where I can look back and see my culpability, my naiveté. And because of this awareness I now live in fear of losing the people I do have in my life, either through inaction or extreme zeal.
To all the people I have lost, I hope to find you once again. But the fear is that once I do I will somehow squander the opportunity. You will be stepping into this pattern of mine, this never ending spinning inside spinning ride for a second time, the one I can’t figure out how to stop. I like to think things will be different this time, that I will be the loyal and attentive friend I struggle to be, but I cannot predict the future no matter how hard I try. The pattern of loss is a defense, it protects me from the evils of humankind, whether those evils are outward or inward.
This confession may or may not propel me to act. The wish is always that the lost person will act for me, will initiate the spark that was once a brightly burning fire. So far it’s dark here. While there have been some attempts at sparks, I left them unattended, unnourished, all under the umbrella of protection I have created for myself. My guilt is not over exaggerated here, it’s quite real, and something I contemplate daily. I use it to tear myself down, to even keep people, all people, distant.
A wallet can be replaced, my mind always comes back to me, but people, people
scatter like sand in a gentle breeze.