Relationships

Dear Delysia,

The thing that I look at and learn from relationships; friendship and other relationships can have emotional costs as well as rewards. The people that are around me seem to be damaged in a way that even my gifts can't simply fix. But knowing them and caring for them comes the feeling of sorrow, empathy and the nature of regret.

It is interesting, children are like immortal creatures in their own way. Immortal as in Tolkiens Elves or Unicorns... For a time, a child lives in their own world upon which other people, helpful or not, impede and intrude and expand and draw them out of that world. J.M. Barrie wrote, "It is only the gay and innocent and heartless that can fly," he captured the essence of childhood as a self-contained kingdom where the whims and wants and needs of others hold no dominion. It is state rather untroubled existence in the forests and imagination of the mind. It is very similar to that of the state of Adam and Eve. Once they left the garden and spent all their time in this dying world, entangled in the obligations and the feelings and desires of others, the more of their 'innocence' and heartlessness are worn away. And once they have truly learned of their mortal state, I imagine they are haunted at times of the memories where they lived a peaceful, uncomplicated emptiness. It almost seems like the phrase: It is better for us to pass thru sorrow that we may know the good from the evil, could be translated to something like this: To live a mortal experience, it is gradual, sometimes painful as we move away from the safety of a more isolated existence and toward empathy and socialization and obligations to others... Growing up.

It's a process that begins but doesn't end in childhood, as the world and the people we meet change us in a million unexpected ways, for better or worse. I like that it's possible to move past pain and fear, but not to pretend that they don't exist. It's almost saying to us all that if we're willing to sacrifice the comfortable, insulated boundaries of our own solitude, it will be worth it.

This is a hope of mine. I hope you like it too.