Hello everyone
I have very few words lately. It seems the more I say, the less I achieve. Everytime something is gained these days, something else seems to be lost. I've never asked for everything around me to stay the same, but I suppose I'm struggling to get my head around the fact that I'm not in control of peoples' feelings towards me. And, in reality, it matters not two hoots how much I care for others, or even what I feel in my own head, if they don't want to care or feel anything in return, they just won't.
Elizabeth Bishop wrote a famous poem called 'One Art'. It's beautiful, and I love it, and it's about losing a friend. It's a poem which is full of 'I don't care' bravado, but the depth of how alone she is feeling is clear. So, I'll leave the rest of this blog to her, as I'm unable to articulate things these days.
One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
-x-
