Letting Go

Ok, so this happens to be my first official blog entry. I ve always written a lot during highschool, and read other people's blogs; but it wasnt until recently...meaning yesterday, that someone actually asked if I had one myself. At first, I thought 'me?...nah' but then, what the hell, why not? Im a creative person, thinker, and writer, which would make an astonishing and ultra deadly combination. LOL! Ok!! As if that wasnt dramatic enough. The next step after creating my blog was deciding what to write about in my blog...and thats when it hit me. I wanted to write about letting go of the past and moving on. Now, that could quintessentially apply to intimate relationships, friendships, or just plain old experiences.
A favorite quote of mine by T.S. Elliot, in his book, The Cocktail Party illustrated, "What we know of other people are only the moments in which we knew them...at every meeting we are meeting a stranger." I read that quote over and over again and I thought, wow, that was deep. Being the pisces and psych major that I was, I disected and over analyzed the quote. I surrendered myself to the dancing words and found refuge within each vowel, each letter, each syllabul. But, during those minutes and seconds it still didnt become devestatingly clear to me how that quote would haunt me a few months afterward.
Now Im here. Staring back at the computer screen realizing that I lost a best friend of mine, a lover, and a counselor in a true sense. When all else failed, meaning the world, he was my so to speak "Spartan"...my strength. But, thats how I remembered him then, 14 walking the hallways of a highschool dedicated to excellence. He inspired me to reach for excellence. My muse. Six years later, both 20 years old, in college, and dedicated to different areas of science. We stayed in contact and tried to maintain and sustain our friendship; for lack of better words. Freshmen year at Morehouse..he found Religion....and I found that I still loved him. Or maybe I shall say...I still loved the person that he was. I tried to understand, wanted to support him in his endeavors; did everything that i could to make sure our highschool love affair wasnt forgotten...and then he found her. A woman that loved Jesus just as much as him and now claimed to love him too.
But, see..my love, was different. We went waaay back, he knew me better than I knew myself and vice versa. I loved his smile that lit up a room. I loved his artistic talents. I loved his weakneses. I cried with him on many occasions. I heard his name and fell in love ten times over. And I also loved God, because he made that man for me. I believed!!! But, summer of Sophomore year, he told me he nolonger believed. He still loved me, this I knew, but his life was on a different path....and he didnt want me following along the road. He was willing to let go so he wanted me to do it also. It was that easy. Yup! My H.S. sweetheart...boy did I love that man. I cried and cried, called mutual friends, hung up...called back; hung up..called back. I wanted to persuade him and the rest of the world that it was a mistake. I needed him like air in my lungs..but even that I didnt want without him. This I swore upon...until the quote crept back into my head.
The young man I knew and grew to love, was not the same man anymore. He would never have abandoned me, our friendship, everything we shared. He would have never turned his back on me. No. This was actually a stranger indeed. I was foreign to him. I wanted to believe he was the same and could identify the same feelings instead of cowardly pushing them aside.....but i had to see him for what he was...or became. Life is sometimes uncanny like that, you have to take things for what they are and nothing more. The intense relationship we once shared was nomore. I shared those moments with a young man in high school. He now shared new moments, whether profound or not, with a woman in college. Did I hate him? No. The sad part is, every limb in my body adored him more. I lost respect for him, but hey...a brother has to do what he has to do. Even if that means selling out an important part of his soul. I learned a valuable lesson...I learned that....those moments in which I knew him were gone and at our next meeting...he is nothing but a ...stranger.