Desecrating a Temple
How strange it feels, after letting someone go, to meet someone new. The purposes of our social bonds are many, and so too is the depth we give to each one. I am especially familiar with losing friendships for all sorts of reasons: some due to circumstances beyond our control, like distance, and others simply because we grew apart. Yet what follows is always, at the very least, peculiar. I haven’t spoken much about this with others, but I feel as though we each follow an unspoken path designed to reach a friendship. Those steps, those small rituals that help us gauge how aligned we are with another, gradually lead us toward intimacy.
This is a delicate topic, for it can easily drift into conversations about “filling voids.” I do not subscribe to the idea that we possess voids. We are whole, though of course we may complement one another, create bonds, but even without them, we remain ourselves. We cannot place the weight of our identity on another person, whoever they may be. It seems more fitting to speak in terms of roles.
And here I can relate to the discomfort that comes with bringing someone new along this path, offering them a role in our lives. I find it nearly impossible not to oscillate between the present and reflections of the past, whether that comparison feels comforting or unsettling. I must admit: comparison is inevitable. And I’ve noticed this: the more weight we give to the role someone takes on (whether as a friend, or perhaps a parental figure), the more guilt creeps in when we allow this new person into our lives.
It can even stir shame. How dare I grant this stranger the privileges once held by another? How dare I look forward with hope, to feel joy and delight, when the protagonist is no longer the same? Guiding someone new along paths already traveled rarely feels as genuine. It almost feels like desecrating a sacred place.
And yet I ask myself, and I hope you do too, what purpose is served by denying ourselves happiness, or denying it to someone else who could thrive in our company, simply because this someone is gone? Does that make the past, or the feelings we once held, any less real? If we understand that this new person is not the one who left, why punish this new bond as if it were the same story? We are not rewriting the past.
This discomfort, I believe, should not be cloaked in shame, neither from ourselves nor from the other person. Recognizing these differences is a sign that something is indeed different, and therefore new, no matter how familiar the path. When you walk hand in hand with the right person, what once felt ordinary shines with a fresh light, and the possibilities unfold endlessly.
Our love, dear reader, does not die nor leave with those who have gone. True love permeates everything; if it does not, then it is not love. And we can love even more deeply, shaped by the influence of those who have left their mark upon us. For the beauty of a person lives on in others, and to witness this is both a virtue and a tribute to their memory.