Time like your cheek has turned for me...

The other night I had an unexpected piece of light from heaven given to me in the form of a two-way monologue with an ineffably dear friend with whom I had not expected to speak agan. His slow fade from my life was always a sore spot I tried not to bump with too many memories...since I knew all too well why we had to decrease. For leaving, for ending, for anger, for growing, for pretty strangers, for rejecting cousel and comfort, for the faint fluttering of a yellow bird, for finally dropping burdens that maybe never belonged to us. There was always an emptiness in my heart that I tried to ignore, and I couldn't scrub the starlight from the lines in my palms because he knows the truth, knows me so well.

Every time we don't speak for months I feel that time flooding past slipping from my fingers and I think wait...wait. I haven't written, I won't remember this piece of today. So much time lost. I could never explain to anyone. I always convince myself that we must be strangers to each other and that if we ever do talk again it would be a pale, frail version of what it used to be...an aching shadow of the past, people we'd been before lingering on and trying to find each other but not being enough a part of us to reach past the Now. But it hasn't ever been true, not yet...

Me: You're right, I've had lots of kindred spirits, but you were always special. That's all I'm saying.
Mi Amigo: can i ask a tough question?
Me: yeah go ahead
Mi Amigo: here's the question: what is it that makes you say to some people, you understand me, and to others, you don't?
Mi Amigo: is it just the appreciating the best parts about you?
Me: that is tough to explain. can i say it's something vague, like a feeling? :) no, no listen...i think it's more of an accurate complete evaulation
Mi Amigo: yes!
Me: i think you saw my light but also where i was weak and why...and that was so comforting to me
Mi Amigo: you have mde it so far
Me: like i was fully visible to someone
Mi Amigo: so far from that summer
Mi Amigo: it makes me really happy
Me: oh, that made me cry
Mi Amigo: you can admit the whole package, not just focus on what you're terrified of, not just dismissed all that good people can see it all. you have embraced the full package and, i dare say i think you truly love it anyway.
Mi Amigo:"have you forgotten how to love yourself?"
Mi Amigo: i think you've learned in this last year.
Mi Amigo: what a beautiful, dark, lovely, depressing year
Me: amen
Mi Amigo: you don't understand. i hope you do. do you know how much agony i went through to try and get you to do that?
Me: i'm sorry!!!!! i had to grow up
Mi Amigo: do you know how hard it was to hear you essentially not understand yourself? it was mind boggling really
Mi Amigo: so, goodness, say it again, i want to read it again, i'm excited about it
Me: you're so awesome
Mi Amigo: say it again ;)
Me: which part?
Mi Amigo: i have light and darkness, i have good and bad, i know my mistakes, but i will not let them tear me from the love of God, and so i can love myself as well as others, i can accept me as those who understand me love me
Mi Amigo: something like that
Mi Amigo: it was too good for me to try and word again really
Me: i do believe that.
Mi Amigo: you really do?
Me: i'm human and i'm worth it
Mi Amigo: hell yes!Q
Mi Amigo: with a Q apparently!
Mi Amigo: don't forget the Q!

So the other night I found my friend again and felt my soul stretch with relief. It felt so cleansing to tell him all my discoveries, little stinging thoughts that plague me and the bleeding parts of my heart...and to have him show me the colors of his life now. Since it's trust then it's soul and I think that's why it feels so real. I believed him when he said he had forgiven me. I tried to explain how much he taught me, even if I wasn't ready at time. For all the pain that has shortened our patience, disappointment that has slowed us down, bridges we didn't see for bewilderment, who we have been in every stage and day of our lives, we still met on the other side of the abyss. Not strangers. And that was the gift...not that everything is back to the way it was, not that one good talk obliterated all that pain, but that we still know each other. It feels clear like a bell and a promise.