Vacation Part Two

  Have you ever gone a long time without eating a certain food? Like an apple, and when you bite into that fruit after what feels like forever the flesh is less crisp, less tart than you remember and instantly you are filled with an insatiable craving for the memory of that apple before because when you realize that your memory was simply an airbrushed version you desperately want to go back to that time where somehow everything seemed simpler. 

  All of this is a lame attempt at an artsy analogy to explain the second lesson I learned on my vacation. 

I learned that abstaining leads to dreaming and craving and that our dreams never match up to the real thing. very rarely the flesh exceeds expectation but mostly we are left with a profound sense of disappointment and a collection of past memories which suddenly seem so much simpler. But there is a comfort in this.

  On my vacation I went to visit an old friend someone who I have always been very connected to it had been a few years since we had seen each other since then I had come out, recovered from anorexia and in general grown up. He had grown a few more inches bringing him far over his old height of 6'1 along with handling some big issues which aren't mine to discuss. He was my kindergarten husband and for those brief years when we lived nearby we were like siblings.We had seen each other sporadically in the few years since he had left and there had always been a KAPOW! connection. This year we lost that. Sure we had fun and it was lovely to see him but things were different.

When I left I didn't instantly miss him again and more than anything I wanted to have that perfect friend back in my life.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. I've learned that saying is truer than one can ever imagine. But like I said before there is a comfort in this. In realizing that we have built someone into more than they are reminds us of limits and of humanity it's when we lose and mourn the loss of a larger than life figure that we see them for who they really are which is an ever changing,flawed,beautiful human being who maybe isn't the same person but then again neither are we.

So maybe these two new people can keep building their lives together.