(no subject)
I always knew this would happen, but I never expected that I would care so much.
You're miserable. And there's nothing, NOTHING that I'm allowed to do.
Not that I'd ever be arrogant enough to say I did much in the days when I was allowed to do anything. It has always been and will always be time borrowed from fate and happenstance, some weird mingling of the grace of God and sheer dumb luck, bringing you back to the world every morning.
But however little you choose to care about me, I will always feel responsible for you. However hard you work to cut me out of your life - and you have worked pretty darn hard at it - I will always feel the connection. I keep my distance because Steve's right when he points out that you didn't make me happy anymore. I keep my distance because, honestly, I don't want to be close to you ever again, now that I've seen this ugly side to you.
But you've told me three times that once upon a time I saved your life. No one who has never had that sort of a bond with a person will understand. I guess maybe you don't understand anymore, because you also told me that there was nothing I could ever do to lose your friendship. You lied then, or you lie now every time you walk past me in the halls and pretend I don't exist. I'm surprisingly okay with that. You're not someone I need to have in my life.
But I'm worried about you. I will always worry.
"My anger protected me for only a short time; anger wearies itself out and the truth comes in....Did I hate him, then? Indeed, I believe so. A love like that can grow to be nine-tenths hatred and still call itself love. One thing's certain; in my mad midnight fantasies, when he was at last to be seeking my love, I always had him begin by imploring my forgiveness. Sometimes he had hard work to get it. I would bring him within an ace of killing himself first.
"But the result, when all those bitter hours were over, was a strange one. The craving for Bardia was ended. No one will believe this who has not lived long and looked hard, so that he knows how suddenly a passion which for years has been wrapped around the whole heart will dry up and wither. Perhaps in the soul, as in the soil, those growths that show the brightest colours and put forth the most overpowering smell have not always the deepest root. Or perhaps it's age that does it. But most of all, I think, it was this. My love for Bardia (not Bardia himself) had become to me a sickening thing. I had been dragged up and out onto such heights and precipices of truth, that I came out into an air where it could not live. It stank; a gnawing greed for one to whom I could give nothing, of whom I craved all....
"But when the craving went, nearly all I called myself went with it. It was as if my whole soul had been one tooth and now that tooth was drawn. I was a gap."
-C.S. Lewis, Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
You're miserable. And there's nothing, NOTHING that I'm allowed to do.
Not that I'd ever be arrogant enough to say I did much in the days when I was allowed to do anything. It has always been and will always be time borrowed from fate and happenstance, some weird mingling of the grace of God and sheer dumb luck, bringing you back to the world every morning.
But however little you choose to care about me, I will always feel responsible for you. However hard you work to cut me out of your life - and you have worked pretty darn hard at it - I will always feel the connection. I keep my distance because Steve's right when he points out that you didn't make me happy anymore. I keep my distance because, honestly, I don't want to be close to you ever again, now that I've seen this ugly side to you.
But you've told me three times that once upon a time I saved your life. No one who has never had that sort of a bond with a person will understand. I guess maybe you don't understand anymore, because you also told me that there was nothing I could ever do to lose your friendship. You lied then, or you lie now every time you walk past me in the halls and pretend I don't exist. I'm surprisingly okay with that. You're not someone I need to have in my life.
But I'm worried about you. I will always worry.
"My anger protected me for only a short time; anger wearies itself out and the truth comes in....Did I hate him, then? Indeed, I believe so. A love like that can grow to be nine-tenths hatred and still call itself love. One thing's certain; in my mad midnight fantasies, when he was at last to be seeking my love, I always had him begin by imploring my forgiveness. Sometimes he had hard work to get it. I would bring him within an ace of killing himself first.
"But the result, when all those bitter hours were over, was a strange one. The craving for Bardia was ended. No one will believe this who has not lived long and looked hard, so that he knows how suddenly a passion which for years has been wrapped around the whole heart will dry up and wither. Perhaps in the soul, as in the soil, those growths that show the brightest colours and put forth the most overpowering smell have not always the deepest root. Or perhaps it's age that does it. But most of all, I think, it was this. My love for Bardia (not Bardia himself) had become to me a sickening thing. I had been dragged up and out onto such heights and precipices of truth, that I came out into an air where it could not live. It stank; a gnawing greed for one to whom I could give nothing, of whom I craved all....
"But when the craving went, nearly all I called myself went with it. It was as if my whole soul had been one tooth and now that tooth was drawn. I was a gap."
-C.S. Lewis, Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold