![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"It's the end of an era", he said looking down at Lucifer sitting on his xbox. He'd be having to take that away pretty soon since I was moving out. But he's right. The end of an era.
I looked back over my room, most of its contents packed away in boxes still awaiting the trek. Too many boxes. Too much stuff, the weight, the burden of it all. In packing it I'd resolved that much of it, though it may make the journey, would be done away with, given to a good home or recycled as the fates may have it.
And looking back over the course my life has sailed it was interesting to think of. An era. I've had many eras in my life. I worry that most people can't say that. Not just spans of time, not just differing circumstances, but eras. I've had at least four that I remember: two on the east coast, two on the west. And I've always known that feeling, though never had I words for it before now. Funny thing is, I can't rightly say that any one was better than any other. Being separate eras they defy comparison. Just as our heroes of the silver age cannot be rightly compared to those of the golden. Not better, not worse, just... different.
You know, it's funny, the passage of time. It truly seems like lifetimes away since the events which shaped those earlier arcs of my life. Like it was indeed some other soul who fought those adventures. On the one hand I often lament that I no longer feel some of the ways I used to. And yet, many of the things I feel now I could not have felt back then, with the frame of mind which allowed those feelings I now lament the loss of. The passions of the heart have become passions of the mind. The latter may seem deeper, but somehow they lack the same fire, the same all-consuming intensity, and yet their subtlety belies the force they can generate.
It's always painful moving. To box up the treasures and detritus of years. So many shards of memories forgotten. The overwhelming suddenness of remembrance. To embrace the loss of time. It's interesting though, looking back, to bear witness to your own life. Interesting to see the ways in which each of my lovers have left their marks on my possessions, on my life. Interesting to consider the mementos I bear around with me.
I've always known I've a bit of wanderlust to my soul. The idea of being tied down too long is reminiscent of a bird, it's wings flapping, caught, foot ensnared in bitumen but ne'er to be free again. Humans have a habit of their stuff expanding to fill the amount of space they have, much as goldfish expand to fit the size of their bowl. Mayhaps it would be easier to move more often, to more frequently distance ourselves from the history of our being. The Shinto practice of moving to be free the miasma of death is one which I've always secretly understood. And yet, to be ever moving, to ne'er settle down, that too is misfortunate. That one should be ever running from life, to fear its tempting and bittersweet embrace if only to test one's self against avoiding the clutches of its demise, seems to me to be a waste of that very life itself.
Each era has borne with it different fruits, such different fruits. The curious thing is looking back on those whose friendship I've maintained through different eras, the ways in which their roles within those separate arcs so diverge. Which truly makes one to wonder at what fruits the future may bear, what roles those old friends may play in the unending stage of life, or whether they have roles to play at all as too many have parted. It's funny too how my romances have played out in those different eras. The loves of CTY and of adolescence, of Olde Reed and New, as different as a crow and wild asparagus, or a welding torch and spanikopita.
To be honest, I'll be glad of the change from the most recent era. I certainly learned a lot, certainly matured a lot. But I don't think this last era has set well with me on the whole. I'm not sure if I could accurately explain it. Though perhaps it is just that it is time for the era to end, for a new era to begin. I've heard that life is the perpetual process of letting go, and I think this is true. Though that means releasing both our sorrows but also our joys.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-23 06:23 pm (UTC)From:Also, this is obviously Grace. I've added you.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 12:29 am (UTC)From:Good luck on yours! :-)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 11:07 am (UTC)From: (Anonymous)Dankje wel.
So do you know where you're headed off to yet? Ideas?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 11:09 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 03:38 pm (UTC)From:I'll be actually posting in my journal (as opposed to all this commenting I've been doing lately) soon, so watch there in the coming weeks.
Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:46 am (UTC)From:Depending on how long you're there for, getting a look at the countryside et al would also be good. If you're doing a round-the-world bit, you could jump from Hiroshima (or more likely Fukuoka which is pretty near by) over to Korea pretty easily. So --> Hawai'i --> Toukyou --> Kyouto --> Hirosima --> Korea sounds like a good trip.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 10:04 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-01-24 06:53 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 11:15 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-01-25 11:35 am (UTC)From: