Let Slip

I’ve had this feeling I can’t shake for months now.

In fact it has been lingering for so long I cannot remember if ever there was a time when it didn’t pervade my happiness. Much has changed in the last year. Relationships have morphed and in some cases been severed. For those I have let go of I do not mourn. It is those that remain, often hanging by a thin thread of history, that I am sad for. In one hand I have a relationship so deep and richly fulfilling it is almost enough in itself. In the other, friendships slipping through my fingers while I try in desperation to hang on.

And I can’t see a way to have both hands full, each with a firm grip, never letting go. Somedays I tell myself it is just how life goes, friendships ebb and flow and others dry up completely. But mostly I can’t accept being a failure as a friend and that is the real feeling that pervades my thoughts.

I am trying to pick up the pieces I have let slip through but perhaps they are already broken, unable to be glued back in to the fabric of a crumbling friendship.  Either way, I have to try.

Understanding the ‘drop’

It first happened a little over ten years ago.

The night air was cool as I walked down the broken concrete pathway to the hills hoist, washing basket piled high with damp clothes. As I pegged each sock, skirt or shirt to the thin wire line I looked up into the ink black sky pock-marked with stars. We had been learning about astrology at school. They said that the universe went on forever. Forever. Never ending, forever. How could all my world be such a tiny spec in the whole grand concept of the universe, this entity that went on forever. I stared out into the all-consuming blackness and I felt something drop. As if my heart had suddenly lost grip and free-fallen into my stomach. Perhaps it was a realisation of my own mortality, a sudden need for life purpose or even a resignation to the futility of life. At eleven years old, it terrified me.

In the twelve years since I have been learning to recognise it and then push it far away. I know the triggers now: a vivid night sky; a moment of happiness; talk of what happens after death; seeing pictures of the earth from space. However, recently I have been trying to learn to accept the drop, to understand it better. I have been letting it run its course. Instead of turning on the television or distracting my thoughts with a book I’m trying to just sit and listen to whatever it is that’s going on in my head.

This is really hard to explain and for most of my life I have been too afraid of talking about it because it means experiencing the feeling all over. Nevertheless, I wonder if anyone out there has a semblance of an understanding as to what I mean, or know the feeling themselves…..