Absence Makes...

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about “missing” - about the emotional ache that is felt that can be attributed to the absence of something that was once present. I’ve been thinking about this because – obviously – I’ve been feeling it quite a lot.

There are things about this emotion that I’m grateful for, things about it that concern me and things that I’m just confused about. I’m disturbed, for example, about the tendency to “romanticize” things that are lost. Why does a mind do this? Wouldn’t it be healthier to retain a true memory of reality, a vivid recollection of the sum of both good and bad that would prevent the feelings of loss from becoming overpowering? Rather than such a reasonable approach, I am in a constant battle with my mind over the desire to remake my mental documentaries into blockbuster Hollywood romances.

My mind has a tendency to become fixated on the most random of memories, and convert them into great symbols of “all that once was and could have been.” Case in point: Routine car rides with Someone Who Shall Not Be Named. Rather than recall the regular disagreements over choose-a-topic-don’t-worry-we-fought-about-it-unless-it-was-a-tv-show-or-movie, my mind plays a screen shot of a turning head, a beautiful smile. Over and over and over. More than irritating, this is befuddling. Am I to learn something that I have not yet learned? Is that why my mind is stuck on repeat?

Similar scenarios race through my head throughout the day, with variations in location/props/dialogue. Always, I have to reason with myself. Yes, I say to myself. You’re right. That was lovely. I can see why you would want that back. Yep, those were enjoyable – those THREE MINUTES. IDIOT. Think. Do you not remember the preceding SIX HOURS???

Well, no. Actually, I DON’T seem to remember the preceding six hours. That’s part of the problem. Even stranger, if I do force the memories to return, they seem to pale in significance next to those three minutes of glory.

What the fruit? What kind of crappy malfunctioning mind did I get in the brain lottery?

There are other times that I feel gratitude for these feelings of loss… times that I use them to justify time spent, emotions invested, dreams sacrificed… If I were not feeling the way that I do, I might question whether or not I had been truly invested, or whether or not I had really “lived” the experience to the fullest. These moments of gratefulness are fleeting, because – frankly – the ache is unpleasant. Still, they are like flickers of light – indicators of a stronger light that may come, when I am ready.

Here is another disturbing thought: Something is happening in my life, right now, that I am going to miss later.

How do I know what it is? I’ve learned that you can’t predict the specifics of absence that will trigger pain. Who would have thought that today – more than fifteen years after letting go of my pony – I still miss the feeling of his body standing behind me, of his nose softly blowing warm air down the back of my neck as I sat on the ground before him? At the time, I never realized the gift that he was giving me. What other gifts am I failing to notice right now?

Perhaps the answer is that I can’t know with certainty. I will – inevitably – feel the ache of loss. It is a part of life. This I can accept. What I cannot accept, however, is that there is no way of channeling it - of embracing it and feeling less pain and more gratitude. Undoubtedly some of this comes back to a recurring theme – that of living “in the present.” Now is the only time that I have to appreciate the things that I have – with any assurance – only right now. If I know that aspects of today’s life will be gone, I either enjoy them to the fullest or wish – later – that I had. And perhaps that leads into another aspect of the pain… regret.

I think that the “missing” that I feel most acutely is that which is mixed with regret. Perhaps regret is a magnifier of emotion, an element that creates mental disproportion. It would explain quite a lot of my own personal experiences and lingering, persistent thoughts. I have regrets, and they – undeniably – have me. I am, for the moment, caught in their grasp. Perhaps the regrets that I have accumulated thus far will always have me, to some extent. That is a topic for a future contemplation.

Today, though, I have a goal. Today I will accumulate no new regrets.