Persistence

Sometimes, dear John, I think that the only thing that separates me from you is persistence.

I canot say that you did not try; if anything I think you tried way too hard - to engineer, to construct, to contrive, in short, to ensure that everything worked as it should.

What is clear, sweet long-gone-boy-of-mine, is that there are many things which still don't quite work as they should without you here; and it is only our persistence that allows us to keep going, to persist.

Love is a fate resigned, or so the song says and that is what I have come to understand. It is an odd place we inhabit still, that place of resignation; I know now, after much soul searching, introspection and thought that you do exist in memory form, as a part of a life I have already lived. In a sense you are suspended somewhere in between my past and my psyche; and there you shall remain. I know that I have now spent more time without you than with you and I wonder if that means the balance will tip at all, at any time.

I sense that you have deifned me in some way; which I can attest to in many ways. I resist the temptation to be defined by your death dear heart, though there are times when I wonder.

I persist in my desire to keep going, to live, to do all the things you would have done and maybe to take a little bit of you forward. I am not sure that I succeed though.

I notice that my footfall going forward is not as sure and confident as it once might have been; occassionally I feel that life is a bit more of a battle than it should be and I sense that my unfailing optimism has been forever dented by losing you how and when I did.

And that is really all, we persist in spite of these feelings and indeed because of them; fuelled in a way by the hurt we still feel. It does recede and allow us to continue on, to persist.

I guess that is enough to be going on with.