Stuck Together

 

I know there is distance between us.  That part doesn’t bother me.  It’s the silence in that distance that gets to me.  The more time that goes by without a letter, email or phone call, the more that silence expands the distance.   It is the silence that festers.  It chips away at the wall of daily activity we build up around ourselves until finally a substantial piece breaks off, exposing the void, the vacuum within the distance that nobody talks about.

I must admit, sometimes I dig out your old letters and read them all over again.  It’s just like seeing the actors in your favorite movies.  They haven’t aged, they look the same, they still wear the same clothes, even though years have gone past.  Rereading your letters seems to place patches on the chipped wall.  It doesn’t matter that it is old news.  When I’m reading it, I imagine you were doing it just a couple days ago, not three or four summers back.

Maybe this is what they call getting stuck in the past.  Am I stuck?  Have I not moved forward?  I just did laundry yesterday.  I remember doing that.  That’s moving forward, isn’t it?  My clothes are clean, I have combed what’s left of my hair.  I don’t think I’m stuck.  Okay, so maybe I look older in the mirror, but I bet if you are reading some of my old letters, in your mind I look the same as I always have.

Just maybe, we’re stuck together.