passing of aeons, part I

God.

I will talk to you like this.

These days I feel such a compulsion, almost like a necessity, to stay silent. Still.

It's what I felt when I still lived in Kansas City. How can it have already been nearly two years since I left? Yet it has been, and I don't know how time has slipped away. I mean I think about that place, how different it was, and strangely it seems both immediately almost within my grasp (just out of fingertip length) and unbelievably far removed. How things were so very different in some ways. In other ways, they were exactly the same. The curious thing is that while on some levels it feels like our relationship was so much closer then, like we were so much more closely living relationally in intimacy, nevertheless our relationship now feels just as sweet, just as close, even though in outward ways it probably wouldn't be perceived to be such. But I don't suppose that's really what matters about all these things.

How strange life becomes sometimes. These shifts happen, and suddenly the qualities or general character that defines one period no longer are the qualities or general character that define the next period. Like unfolding aeons, but unexpectedly so. So things continue to pulse throughout them all, and even though certain realizations, lessons learned, and growth stay on, the new becomes something--such a development--that is wholly different and wholly, specifically its own that a disconnect with the previous aeon becomes absolutely, undeniably, unequivocally established.

How strange this thing, life. It continues to move forward, and it is so rarely what you expect. I guess I thought there would be more returns. So often on the crest of a new age, a new aeon, a new period, I have no clue just exactly how thoroughly a break with an old period is about to occur. It's not that I would go back. That could only be death.

But still. How strange to see life in this manner. It's a miracle when anything real and truly good is preserved from age to age, period to period.

I think I didn't expect to be in this place so long--long enough for it to truly become a period and an era entirely in its own right. To be able to see it unfolding is terribly strange, but it also makes complete sense. At this point I don't even really feel a melancholy or a sadness; I just simply observe it, somewhat less touched by the passing of aeons as I once was. I am no longer just a sapling--how completely strange. The bark on this tree has become thicker and harder, causing certain passings of time and friction to be less effective, even while the inside (perhaps, and let's hope) has become ever softer.

The emotional grating of previous aeons passing away becomes less and less as I become more like the mountains--more like the ancient trees. The pain becomes less. The strain lessens.