It’s taken me a while to put this down on paper. I think it’s the prospect of having written it down that makes it more real. Like how everything has to be “in writing” to make it official and on the record. That’s not to say I have not been very acutely aware and brewing on the back of my mind. I just don’t want to acknowledge it.
Dearest Catherine, you’ve been gone for 4 years. It’s rather incomprehensible. From both ends of the spectrum. The fact that it feels so long ago — so long since I’ve actually heard your voice or seen your face. So long since I’ve had a heart to heart with my best friend and share all the typical emotional baggage that comes with muddling through our twenties. So long since we’ve had a good silly laugh out loud moment together. It also feels so short — like somehow you were just there telling me about the Peace Corps recruiter. Just last weekend, we were making fudge together for Christmas. Just the other day, google photos shared the memory of our graduation festivities.
And yet I know, it has been half the time. Half of the time that I have known you, has passed since I haven’t known you. It’s inconceivable. In half the time, I have switched jobs twice, quarantined through a pandemic, gotten engaged, written numerous blogs, and visited your parents call it six times. All without having you to share these moments with. In many ways, I feel like very little has happened in the equivalent amount of time because I have fewer memories. That’s probably just due to the fact that every day in college was a memory and you to share it with, while now, every day of the working world is a blur of mundane routine. Not to say I’m not grateful for those around me now, and I’m generally “happy”, but they aren’t you.
The passing of time is unstoppable, and as I feared, the memories of you continue to fade. It’s a simple math equation where the 8 years we shared together will become less than the years without. And I don’t know what to do. How to be happy without feeling guilty. How to remember without feeling pain. It puzzles and saddens me. I hope you understand.
