Gray Threads

This is a random essencey sort of thing that I wrote last night. It's sort of addressed to an old friend of mine, but it's not a letter... I don't know how to explain it really, but I liked it, so I put it here. *smiles wryly*

Sidenote, but the name of the girl I mention is not really Lea. I'm using a different name for privacy.

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I truly do not know why I’m writing this to you. I won’t ever show it to you, and you’ll never see it anyway—or will you? You used to read these ramblings of mine… but that was two years ago.

I still haven’t let go. I’m still clutching that banner of gray you left behind… as time marched past, it began to fall apart, though. Soon it became mere shreds. During my fight to let you go, I even dropped some of the shreds on my own—of my own free will. I whispered goodbye as I watched them drift slowly down the river of memories.

Several threads still remain, held tight in my fist. I want to let them go. But for some reason, I just can’t. I can’t do it.

Lea says I’m so very strong for having let go of so many of the shreds. But she only knows the surface. If only she knew how hard it is for me to let go of the last few gray threads.

A Russian flag still hides somewhere within the pages of a notebook, along with pictures of you, for you always dreamed of going to Russia. I kept them there among the pages to remind me that even though I so often felt like no one cared… you did.

At least, that’s what you led me to believe. You had Lea believing it too. Was it truth? She thinks it was and still is, and perhaps she’s the one who has it all figured out. I myself may never know. The notebook is buried deep within the recesses of the bookshelf or perhaps the closet, where I hope to have forgotten it.

I have always been a dreamer, old friend. It only worsens as time goes on, an all-too-real condition that has me trapped within the dreamworld more and more often now.

Though it’s not trapped, not really. Being trapped is being somewhere you don’t want to be, unable to leave. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I don’t think I want to leave the dreamworld. I should. I could. But… I won’t.

I think, sometimes, that our friendship was a dream too. Perhaps that comes from the uncertainty of whether dreams are reality or reality is a dream, or maybe they’re all just imaginary in the end.

It doesn’t matter. Whether it was a dream or not, it hurt. Burning like fire and ice. You gave me hope, and then you took it away. Heaven only knows what that did and will do to me.

Sometimes, I understand the whys and the wherefores. I’m not as ignorant as most suspect; at least not all of the time.

You have your own life to live. And you were brave enough to make the choice to move forward, whatever the costs—for you or anyone else.

I blame myself for your leaving though. I had to have done something wrong. I hurt you so many times… perhaps you finally decided that enough was enough. I’m sorry, brother, for what it’s worth. I’m so, so sorry.

I hope you don’t feel the same. Blame is something you once knew all too well. I hope you don’t feel that way. Collect your courage, collect your horse, and ride into the sun. I pray you never feel this same kind of remorse.

Sometimes, I like to watch the model airplane’s shadow flicker on the wall and imagine that you miss Lea and I too; that even though you left, you still think of us. Perhaps it wasn’t abandonment like I once thought. After all, it’s only abandonment if the person doing the abandoning cares naught for the feelings of the others.

Maybe… maybe at night you stare at your ceiling too, and think of the ones you left. Maybe you still care.

And when I spend nights staring out the window at the dark velvet sky, wishing you could hear me when I whisper ‘I miss you’… or spend nights sobbing into my pillow, alternating between talking to you in rushed words from three thousand miles away, to crying out for someone—anyone—to help me… maybe you do hear me.

Maybe my words echo through your dreamworld, and you do hear them. But when you step back into reality, you wonder whether it was simply a dream; the words you hear in the dreamworld are no more tangible than the cluster of pixels and electronic words I was to you in the past. It would make sense.

Maybe you think of the promises you made. Do you feel remorse for breaking them, or do you wonder how I or Lea could have possibly fallen for it?

Perhaps you and Allison knew exactly what you were doing; perhaps her deceit and many attempts to break Lea and I down to shards weren’t as disconnected from you as I once believed…

Or perhaps my imagination is dashing wildly down the jungle trail again, and I’m being silly once more. I always was, you know that.

I think of the promises too, though; all the time. They’re made from the same gray threads I hold in a death grip, even now. All the times you said you cared. All the times you said you would never leave. All the times you said you would miss me if I cut the gossamer strand that kept me trapped here on this broken world… that you would miss me if I went to spin my way through the clouds and the stars and the wishes that fill the sky.

I want to believe your promises and words were true; that you weren’t deceiving me and Lea like everyone else. But when everything you ever said becomes a paradox, one has to wonder—what was the truth and what were lies?

You stole my trust. I never quite found it; instead, I second-guess myself and over-think what friends say, wondering—is this going to end the same way your friendship did? With broken promises and revealed untruths? Do any of them really care? Or is this simply all a game, or a matter of not wanting to seem discourteous?

One knows their trust is wavering uncertainly if they begin questioning the motives of those they love most.

You said you would miss me if I left and went Home. You kept me here; kept my gossamer lifeline secured tightly to the ground. You promised—there it is, more promises that came from your mind and onto the screen—that the pain would go away if I could just keep my gaze fixed on the flickering flame of hope.

You said you would miss me if I left, and so I stayed.

I said I would miss you if you left. And so… you left.

You didn’t go Home, and for that, I am so thankful. But you did leave. Oh, my brother, my dear, dear brother… I went left, and you went right, down a path that makes it so I cannot follow you.

I’ll never see you again. I’ve held onto the dream for over a year now, dreaming that I might see you again—that my first big brother might come running back from Russia to give me a hug and tell me he missed me, and that he had come back.

But that will not happen. Not in this lifetime.

I understand. You have your own life to live. I was and would be only a hindrance now. And that was always the last thing I wanted to be to you. I often said I would do anything for you if I could—I said that almost as often as I apologized for hurting you, as I did so many times.

I said I would do anything for you, and I meant it. And now, the most important thing I can do for you is to let go of the gray threads. To let you move on down the path to your future. And it hurts, it hurts so very much. But I made the promise. And I’ll keep it, no matter how violently it makes the dreamworld quake; no matter how many dream-flowers it shatters.

I’m keeping my promises, even though—and perhaps because—you never kept yours.

I know. I know. I’m being that foolish girl again, with her head in the clouds and stars in her eyes, but her feet firmly planted in the dust of the earth. Feet that are stuck there now because of you.

I could uproot myself, brother, and finally be Home. But I won’t.

I constantly make an utter mess of things. You saw that in me more than anyone. But I’m not going to give in this time. Not like this.

Because I made a promise to you. And no matter what happens to me, or to you, or to the rest of the world, I am not going to break my promise.

Some people would. Some people do. Some people will. Some people are, right at this minute.

I know firsthand that the shards from shattered promises hurt, and cut most deeply into the heart. The pieces of promises strewn over the world cause even the staunchest hearts to bleed.

I won’t cause anyone that pain. The reason I kept my promises last year was because I knew it would make your heart bleed.

And even if you’ve left… even if you no longer care whether I uproot myself… I have new brothers, and new sisters, who would be hurt if I break my promises.

So I won’t.

You broke yours.

But I’m not blaming you for it.

I haven’t forgiven you, but that’s because there was never anything to forgive.

I always did tell you, brother, that you could do or say anything you wanted, and I would never mind it; that I always forgave you because you were my brother, and that’s what siblings do. They forgive.

I held true to that. You can still do or say whatever you like. I won’t hold it against you.

Because I still love you, brother. I don’t know if I was ever really your little sister. But you were my first brother, and I’ll always remember.

You can forget.

But I’ll always remember.

And I’ll stand here through the rain and the snow and the sun, with my feet firmly planted on this cold, cold world. I made promises in the then, and I’ve made promises in the now.

I’m going to keep them.

And maybe someday, we’ll see each other again. Though not really again, since I never truly saw anything but your words and your dreams and your hopes.

You’re going to do wonderfully no matter where you go. Get lost in Russia, if that’s what you want to do. But don’t lose yourself, brother. Always know the path back home and keep it seared in your mind.

Keep your compass in hand and your heart in hope, and everything will be fine in the beginning that comes after the end.

You’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. Lea will be fine.

The fellowship has been broken, but we always knew it would be. And I know that everything sad will come untrue in the beginning; our King made that promise, you see. And He never breaks His word.

Never forget that. I certainly won’t.

So walk on into the light, old friend. Live your dream. I’ll meet you again in the Gray Havens, when the shadow passes and the dawn shines ever brighter.