NYC-Friday: seeing, feeling, missing

Friday:

Finished up the PDF conference, and it was, um… interesting. Probably a lot like the UN. A lot of flexing, a lot of heated debate, a lot of jockeying for time in front of the heads of the organization, whether to impress, or to hopefully gather higher status, I don’t know (and really don’t care). But it was a view into a truly different world. Eye opening I would call it… fist over the eye is another way I would put it at certain times.

I am more prone to notice couples now that I am alone. Maybe it is just because this is the first trip that I am alone… I have seen young couples in love, the discovery phase… where they are almost giddy and just so dogged gone cute about it. I saw one beautiful couple share a very long last kiss good-bye. (hell, I’d do him, they were that gorgeous). And he slowly sauntered off into the night without his love. She was looking down, and every once in a while would carefully glance up, just for a moment to see if he was truly leaving.

I saw tender elderly couples who have shared lifetimes together walking arm in arm, speaking of memories long past… that between the two of them, they seemed to get the story out correctly.

It was when I would walk by an elegant doorway or a beautifully rendered building and started to take the picture to share with Lee Ann, that I would have to remind myself where I am, now in my life and that I don’t have that love to share with. That is the really tough pill to swallow is that the world keeps going on. Friends go on; strangers go on, the grass, the seasons, the bills… all keep going on. I keep going on too… just that there are times when everyone else goes on with their loves, to have and to hold… correction, not everyone.

*Addendum: moving forward takes time, effort, and trial. It isn’t perfect. It isn’t smooth, and it is far from pretty. For those who have offered a shoulder or a hand to hold, I thank you most sincerely. Pain is unique, for each of us. Our lives are all different from each other just is our as our pain, just as is our joy. It doesn’t make one person’s pain worse, or less important, it makes it different. I hope as I move through this life that I not be as brash as to impose my life experience onto someone else’s suffering as if I were to understand their circumstances and feelings. I can only know what I know and how I might be affected. No more, no less.