The sun sets on many things: streets, love, desire. Natural cycles require death.
I’m cleaning up and getting rid of all the things I’m not sending back east. I’m trying to travel as light as possible. For people who know me, they will know that this is difficult. I have, for so much of my life, indulged my love for beautiful things: clothing, art, books, bags…
But I am experimenting with getting rid of more and of needing less. In the last three weeks alone I’ve given away or sold over six huge bags of clothes, four giant bags of books, and I’m gearing up to put furniture, appliances, and other things on Craigslist.
It’s hard, but also healthy, to let go.
I had a nice chain of responses to a question I posed on Facebook the other day. ”What do you do with your old love letters?” I asked on my wall. Well over a dozen friends responded. ”Keep them!” ”Trash them!” ”Depending on how you feel, you might need to get rid of them…” were a few of the responses. The opinions were diverse but everyone had a strong one — no doubt about it, old love is something that stirs emotions.
I haven’t decided what to do with mine, some of which go back to relationships I had in high school. All of which are testaments to loves that are no longer extant.
Last night I found myself for the first — and I hope to goodness the last — time in a yelling argument on the street corner with someone I recently, briefly dated. This person feels deeply wounded by me for reasons I understand but can’t help (essentially that I walked away from the situation once I realized I wasn’t okay with the terms of the relationship). There I was, having angry words flung at me and pointed fingers shaken, trying to channel compassion and understanding, but after fifteen minutes, I’d had enough. The love was decayed enough (and the conversation was not resolving anything, just recycling accusations in a very sad way) that I gave a little stamp to my foot and turned and went into my house, ending the conversation. (He ended up coming back and trying to reconcile with me, but by that point it was way past reconciliation.)
Here’s the thing: decayed love doesn’t mean love isn’t there, it just means it’s no longer green enough to grow anything in it. Love can decay. Love can die. You can recognize the death in love, I am thinking, if you are brave enough to admit that you are moving past it: to admit that the “it” is real, and exists in time. Things that exist in time and space are malleable, are mutable. Love can die but it’s materiality is still there: just like the matter from stars can explode and become planets, life forms. (Where there is decay and death, there is also the possibility for rebirth. Rebirth as radical change…)
Still not sure about those love letters…
