on loss

the tourist,

I understand.

Maybe you were once like I was. Connected, part of something, feeling fully within something better than yourself. And it felt good. Better than just good, it felt...purposeful. Meaningful. It gave you inspiration for life. You loved it, and it loved you. And all was well. Ignorant? Perhaps. But blissful.

What happened to yours?

Are you like me - left with not one soul to blame? Not even yourself, though you've tried over and over again? It makes it kind of worse, doesn't it?

You almost wish that the thing you loved cursed you away because then you could convince yourself it was evil or bad or wrong. You could have someone to blame. But you can't, because right up to the end it was perfect. In the end, it was perfect.

And once it was over, you felt alone.

That's where I am. And where you were.

And you looked around, and decided to never make the same mistake again. To never fall for that deception of love again because love only ever ends in hurt.

Logical. I understand.

Because you can't convince yourself that all that good that you felt, and the meaning that was there, that all of that was worth what you felt once it ended.

So you relegated yourself to a life on the fringe. Never connecting, at least not more than you could manage. Staying firmly foreign to everything and everyone you met. Alien.

A tourist. Speeding through life with no care in the world.

And at this moment, when all I want to do is follow in your footsteps, I can only think to beg of you this one thing:

slow down.

Because I have to believe there's more. I know there's something more to which I can assign my existence meaning. Something which told me it has plans for me, to help and not hurt me.

I almost wish it wasn't true. It'd be so much easier to just stop caring.

But I can't. I won't.

I have to wade through my life, because I want to connect. I want to mean something. I can't let myself follow you.

sincerely,

the unwilling citizen