“Can I go where you go?
Can we always be this close forever and ever?
And ah, let’s go out, you’re my home.”
-Miss Taylor Alison Swift, with help from Me
Reader, it was while dining with a lovely friend and her darling mother that I was struck with a familiar sensation which I have not yet been able to name. The young lady’s family has been close to my own for nigh on two decades now, and we – along with the others in our set – were raised in such a manner that an outside observer might not be able to distinguish to which mother a girl belonged, save for when she scraped her knee and ran to her one and only for comfort.
As my friend told me of her latest adventures, and our mothers reminisced the time long gone, I pondered the peculiarity of people and their passing relation to us. I am exquisitely grateful that my connection to this woman has remained intact throughout the years, but in the continuance of our companionship I was made to consider those to whom the Fates once tied my string, and the knot they since have severed, expiring our bond so that our memories together are akin to the happy lifelessness of a Polaroid picture.
I had a friend once say to me his greatest fear was becoming, “strangers with memories.” At the time, I too was struck by the horror of the phrase, but in the two years since I have seen this particular gentleman I have adopted a new sort of affection for those who are no longer main players in my history.
It is odd, is it not, Reader, to consider the tens – if not hundreds – of persons who bore witness to the making of our personage, and the way in which their presence made some contribution, no matter how miniscule, to our evolution? I find it so. I find it very interesting indeed, to know that there are people in the world, living lives completely separate from my own, people to whom I may never speak again, of whom I have an exceptionally clear mental understanding and highly specific memories. There exist strangers who have, since I bade my peers good-bye, become significant in the lives of people I once knew, and these people have an intimacy with my fellows that I never will, while never having the same understanding of our mutual as I do, simply by the virtue of the fact that we fell into our perfect, predetermined places at different phases of a person’s life. I find that gap between who a person was when I knew them and who they are now, those memories that will never be spoken of between the two concerned parties, those little details and silly trials, woven together into a tapestry whose colours have changed entirely… I find that fascinating.
I may flatter myself, but I hope my words have brought some form of a memory, or perhaps a person, to your mind. For my part, my contemplations on this subject tend to hinge around my childhood church community. I had a best friend named Gracie, of whom I hear occasionally now, but have not spoken to in years. There was a boy named John, to whom I was never close, but saw every Sunday for ages. Two different Davids were constants in my life. A Maddie and Sarah, who I will always love, but now with whom I have sparse interactions – perhaps once every year. I would like very much to have one day in which we all return to our shared time together, if for no other reason than because its importance to our present lives can not be underestimated.
This reality no longer saddens me, Reader, as it did two years ago. Two years ago I was very frightened to leave any piece of myself behind, and regarded any loss as a negative one. Now, I wonder if it is not natural – indeed, even beautiful in its own wistful way – that when a person’s impact on our lives has begun to wane, that they retreat from prominence, and divert their attentions to the lives of those who now need their gifts most, ourselves having already reaped the benefits available at that stage in time. And I trust, though somewhat warily, that if the strings of Fate intend us to be together again, that we will find ourselves in one another’s company in due course.
I will admit I at times long for the comfort of the past, a Gatsby-esque obsession I can not shake that explains the great relief I feel in a person’s presence who witnessed firsthand the events that shaped me. Even now, as I am the happiest I believe I have ever been, I at times find myself missing the difficulties of the years prior, solely because there exists a permanent bond of solidarity amongst the community with which I endured them.
But I believe in Fate, in the invisible string coined by Miss Swift, in the passage of time and persistence of memory. I believe in lasting love that feeds the future and heals the past. I believe I have found my forever people, and I trust in the future with them, because I have seen how those in my past led me here, to happiness and fulfillment, tightly intertwined with those I adore most.
I do hope you know you are deserving of the greatest happiness the world has to offer, Reader, and that if you have not yet found such a thing in its most wonderful form, that you know it is coming posthaste. This I believe as truly as I breathe.
Love,
Lettie Anne