She arrived earlier this week. Arrived from Ohio. She is now settling in comfortably to my collection. So far she is the most money I have spent on a painting. An original Leo Jansen. She looks even better in person. But, now I have no more room on my walls. I actually had to take something else down to put her up.
I always seem to forget how weird life is. The past 10 years have been a wild ride and I often forget the details on how I ended up where I am. It's not really that I'm trying to forget, I simply just don't think about it. But I do think it is good from time to time reflect on the road one has traveled down. This is where I found myself this week. I just finished up two weeks at a new job. I spent the last five months prior unemployed after having worked a job for many years that had become increasingly miserable as time went on. I feel like I am in the right place now, or at least heading in the right direction. I'd say now most parts of my life are good. But there is still one aspect that casts a shadow.
Next month it'll be one year since we last spoke. She was at one time my closest friend. For almost twenty years I loved her. We never engaged in a formal relationship mostly due to situations and timing. But, we played this game of dancing around each other. I'm not sure if either one of us really thought beyond that. We were friends and although we loved each other neither one of us let it go beyond that. I know I was afraid. I was afraid of losing her. Although I believed we would be friends forever, I didn't want to push it. But then it happened. We found ourselves faced with that beyond friendship situation. The lines got blurred and I still don't really know what happened. I hoped we could work through it. We both claimed to care about each other. No matter the outcome I thought we would be ok. I was wrong.
Nothing has ever impacted me to such a degree. I spent more time crying that I probably ever have in my life. And it wasn't about the failed relationship. If she were just some girl breaking my heart I'd be fine, but this was her. She was my most favorite of people. I believed in her. It hurt more that anything. Since it all went down my thoughts have been all over the place. I found myself wondering about that past and I found myself wondering about the future. I questioned everything. And I even came to wonder if I was responsible for what happened. As in, was this my doing? Did this need to happen? She has always been on my mind. Part of me wonders if I felt that I could not move on with my life with her still in it. But I can't really believe that. I never expected she would cut ties. I imagined we would be able to talk about whatever life threw at us.
So, I find myself sitting here wondering about all of this. I wonder where this road goes. The happenings related to her and the rough road through the wilderness that the past ten years has been are all now part of me. I have to keep going the best I can, but the words of Frodo echo constantly in my brain, "How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep, that have taken hold."
Life certainly turned out differently than I ever imagined. Perhaps my enemy lies in expectations. Desire being the root of all suffering.