Broken Bones
This morning while walking to the tram stop I was silently translating words from English to French to Dutch in my head. It’s become a sort of game to see how much Dutch and French I know. Occasionally I’ll try adding German and now and then some Hebrew as well (I haven’t studied Hebrew since I was 12 but I still remember a few things) to my mental vocabulary review.
Anyway, I started simple. Apple. Pomme. Appel.
Potato. Pomme du terre. Aardappel. Kartoffel.
And with that one German word I suddenly started thinking of MAK, my Austrian ex-penpal who shut down our friendship about this time last year after reading about a personal decision I made that didn’t match his idea of morality. Suddenly I felt ehcoes of overwhelming sadness. Nothing close to the ache I felt last year of course, but still there was pain. The same kind of pain I feel in old injuries when the weather is cold or rainy. A dull, relentless ache where delicate tissues were torn and are now held together with thick, ugly scar tissue. A quiet throb where something whole was snapped and was unable to knit back together seamlessly.
I wondered how MAK was doing. Is he still living alone or has he finally found another person he connects with? Does he still have insomnia? Has he visited with his step-father lately?
And trust me, I fully realize that he never asks himself about me. I came to understand a long time ago that my capacity for caring for others long after my association with them has been severed is not a quality shared by everyone else. Just because I care about a person, it doesn’t mean they care about me. Just because I think about someone’s welfare from time to time does not mean that they even remember I exist on this planet. That realization hurt me very badly when I came to it several years ago, but it’s something I have come to accept. And while there are few people that have traveled with me down my path in life that I have been able to fully expunge from my consciousness, I no longer make the assumption that anyone aside from my family (and CB now, I guess) would even bat an eye or notice if I flashed out of existence tomorrow.
But there is that quality deep down within me. That ability to feel every old sprain, slice, scrape and break I’ve ever had in my many relationships with the people who have waltzed in and out of my personal universe. And every now and again something as simple as the German word for potato can bring on enough of a mental chill or a spiritual drizzle that those aches and pains flare bright, even for just a second.
Just because the bones have healed, doesn’t mean they were never broken.
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I envy you if you’ve learned to accept such things without angry feelings towards the other person. I can’t really overcome my own hurt feelings in such situations.
Wow, you handled your feelings with such maturity. I would probably still curse him with syphilis.
I completely relate to this… I can’t think of a particular occassion that sticks in my mind but I still care deeply for people I haven’t spoken to for years. I wonder what they’re up to and I do hope that deep down they are like you and I, and they think of me occasionally. I also don’t hold out much hope though…
I can’t understand people who would consider one point in your life to be a good enough reason to cease friendship. When I make a friend I accept that they will have aspects I don’t like about them as I’m sure they will dislike things about me. It’s the bigger picture that matters, surely?
I seem to hold on to things a lot longer than most people, too. We’re just deep feelers, which sounds kind of science-fictiony, but you know what I mean.
You’re just a good person. When someone hurts me, it takes me a lot longer than a year to get the perspective you have.
yes, maturity is a good word for it along with the fact that you are learning so very very well how to make lemonade when tossed a box of lemons…no need to dwell on negatives…move on and up….those who choose to break the links are the losers…