An Apology

I hope this letter finds you well. I have not heard news of you in quite some time. It is so hard to keep up with people from home. As you may well know. Even my sister who lives in the city now is infinitely more attached to our past than I am. She sends me knews of people we once knew, people she has seen by chance or heard of from others. It feels as though I never really knew any of them. As though they were whispers in a dream. I think sheer proximity to the place of our shared youth grants her longevity of memory, for she visits home from time to time and her contact to the past seems have been strengthened by the act of following old familiar streets.

At times I feel like a patient who has suddenly awaken from a long slumber to find that she has only a flickering recollection of life before some tragic accident. It is like a smell you can't quite place. The images have all faded, except for a few, and I feel utterly disconnected from, well, history.

I write this to you for you are a lasting image from my youth. An image that, prehaps in my childish arrogance I assumed was lack-luster and forgetable against some bright and shining future which fate held out before me.

Many years ago I read a wonderful short story by Ursela Leguin. It was right after I had experienced the second great failure of my life. The first was a girl. The latter was, as I am sure you knew it would be, a game. This is what she wrote:

"He knew how fragile the string was that held hope -- The sword above our heaeds."

Now, so many years later that line reminds me of you, or perhaps it is the memory of you that summons up the image of Damocle's sword. I would like to apologize to you for being so blind to the doom looming above our youthful heads.

I apologize also if I am being coy. I thought, somehow, you would understand. It is the only way I can express myself. Besides, you were always much smarter than me, which I am sure you have always known. I was just ambitious, and alittle talented, and not at all worthy of the greatness I aspired to.

In my minds eye now you are grown and educated. You have a family or a calling. Meaning and fufillment. It is for this reason I feel ashamed at being so remiss. For having not forgiven my 12-year-old best friend sooner. I was not really ever upset with you for your mistakes, but only for loving me because I felt I could never love you back. And now, having been quite unrequited, you will always have my heart, as I am late in love like wisdom.