We walk hand-in-hand these days, me and that Other Side. She’s an emotional rough and tumble type who frets at the mere imagery of confrontation, and yet the depths she feels the goodness of life is nearly bottomless; a möbius strip of vibrant, endless, increasing energy, moving, falling, flying, for all manner of things.
This Side has grown a bit more pragmatic. I’m grateful─someone really had to take the reins and point us in a direction, and those series of willowy moments, some major, and some like breaths of air taken long ago, have brought me (or even perhaps, us), to this place in time. The great mysteries of life have not been answered. No grand adventure or fashionable task has been completed, yet, after where I have been, I can’t help but shutter or laugh when acknowledging that I am still alive.
Perhaps we all face our morality as sharply as I did, at least, I know quite a many who have. I’m coming out of it with a familiarity with myself, and finally a way to begin to take it all in. I have known people to not come out at all. Others disappear, all for different reasons. Some return, looking quite good, sending prickles of envy, and then finally, admiration.
I won’t fight what comes when I join all of the pieces. I have spent far too much time feeling broken and incomplete, like a pile of letters when there should be a book, a bag of sugar when we want a cake, a girl possessed by a thoughtless, mindless, and shameless sadness. It was so dark there, that I will never ever let myself go back, and I won’t leave any pieces along the way.
There might be much, much longer to go. I can’t really tell from where I can see, but I can say that we have come quite a long way.
I miss some of those I met and were left behind. I will miss the places I used to love them in, but I won’t be back. We won’t be back.
But you had a piece of me, and that changed it forever.
We are stronger together, and it’s much brighter now. We dream of certain sights and sensations, but there is no rush as we familiarize ourselves with this forward path. And those with paths intertwining my own, either freshly joined or there with me from the beginning, I would have them know that I love to love and impress them. I hope soon to be a source of strength, and maybe someday, fortitude.
There are things around me to be seen and enjoyed simply, as well as a barrage of hard and consistent work to do. There is tremendous fear in some pieces, while others still don’t really have purpose and cannot sense danger or feel such things.
I don’t think we are meant for this particular place for long. It’s often too bright to see, and the nights are so cold. There are a few known places to go, with lots of strange, gray space in between. We go together, so I am never alone. It’s just better this way.
Let it come, and let it go. Don’t be beaten down by what we’ve seen before. You’re made of tougher stuff than that. Hold close to those you love, and try not to let them out of your sight for too long. Might I call them the basics? They said these tools would dig us out and work on the surface, so let’s see it made true, and push the boundaries of what we have tried before, and marry ourselves to this life.
Dec 13th 2023
Written by Randa 