On Sentimentality

Jerusalem

I am not sure that I qualify to write this yet. I still have a little heart-ache when I look through photos of this place. I miss people who I may never see again: soul-friends and acquaintances alike. The people who were always there. The places I knew by heart. The life I wanted to lead.

I was fragile. But now I am stronger. And so, I will begin.

* * *

When we travel, or in life generally, we are often saying goodbye. And quite often, too soon. To people, to places, to those rare occasions when it felt as if we had it all figured out. Those moments when we wished we could stop time, and to have things stay that way, forever.

As hard as it can be to walk away, (and how many times I’ve had to walk away), I believe I have always been rather pragmatic about it. Secure in the knowledge that this was a certain time in my life, a special time, I have appreciated how every place I have lived has helped me grow, taught me new lessons, and prepared me for the next chapter of my life. I am so grateful to have known so many places, and more importantly, the beautiful people they have given me.

For what good does it do us to wonder about things that can never be? To miss places that had begun to feel like home, but that we had to leave behind? Is it comforting, to have little moments of memory? To indulge in nostalgia? Or does it cause too much pain, when yet again we wake up from our dreams and must face the day ahead of us, in the real world. Where we actually live, presently.

These experiences that we try to hold on to, when things were a certain way, with a unique group of people: what makes them so special is that it will never again be the same.

For when you see friends after time away from each other, after years or after days, you are both different people: you’ve hopefully grown, had new experiences. You cannot expect them to be the same, nor can they expect you to have remained unchanged.

We are always changing and to fight that only brings sadness, frustration, anger and grief. We must learn to cope with the changes life brings us, and see the hope in new possibilities, rather than remain in a time that has drifted away.

As difficult, as painful, as it can be to let go and move on, we must. To live in the past is only to hold ourselves back. It is hard, so hard sometimes to accept that things are not turning out the way we had hoped for.

You need to be patient, and give yourself the time and space to process and grieve. For this is a loss.

There were days I couldn’t help but crying. But I am no longer distracted by thoughts of what won’t be. At least, not all the time. I let myself give in to memories, but I try not to get lost in daydreams. I am facing my life as it is. I know where I am, and I know in what direction I must go. But every so often, a little memory will graze at my heart, that pains me just a little. I can drop into my old world for a moment, only a moment. Then I must come back to the present. For to try to remember fully? Now, still, it’s almost too hard to look back.

Then, I remind myself of this, which I know to be true:

That, one day, you will be able to see that special time for what it was, and appreciate what it gave to you. One day, you will be able to remember the happy memories fondly, with only a slight pinch in your heart. You will know with certainty how fortunate you were to have had such an experience, and the hope that in some unexpected way, you may have such an experience again, in a different place, with people you haven’t meant yet, in a place you’ve never dreamed of visiting.

* * *

Maybe saying all of this, out loud, will be what I needed to do to move on. Maybe I will wake up tomorrow, dreaming of the life I am building, and not the one I left behind. I won’t know until then. One day, in the future, I may no longer be able to relate to these words, these longings. But I can read this, and then I will remember that I felt all of this. I don’t want to forget how much I loved it there.

I am not sure of many things, but I do know that I miss it. From the first moment to the very end, in the smiles and in the sad times, I miss all of it. I miss all of you.

with all my love,

greer