On the ambuguity of loss and the supremacy of R.a.R.

Time to get philosophical for a change.

Fact: I hate loss. It makes me feel like a toddler all over again, like the time my mum threw away my favourite record because it was covered in scratches from playing it too often. I can't have been older than four, but I still see myself running after my mum, crying my eyes out as she walked down the driveway to the garbage bins with my record in her hands. I remember her resolute face, determined not to let my crying impress her (something she alway was paricularly good at - and actually in most of my memories, my mother is wearing this resolute expression). I remember the sound as she broke the shining black disc in two and shoved it into the bin.

A quarter of a century has passed, but the memory of this helpless feeling is still engraved in my mind.

Or the time a couple of years later, when I lost my favourite teddy bear in the train. That must have been the single most traumatic experience of my childhood.

I'm grown up now and should be able to handle these things in a more adult way. But the truth is: I'm not really. Loss still makes me feel just as helpless and paralysed as it did when I was six.

These last two years saw me losing big time; I lost love. I lost my best friend. I lost my car before I even had it (which may sound trivial, but those who know me well understand that it is anything but trivial). I "lost" my bike!!

A precious friend told me not so long ago that I was getting cynical and although I don't feel that, I couldn't help thinking "Well, who wouldn't?!".

I am determined not to let these things get on top of me, but sometimes I feel that working my way out of these rainclouds is like trying to swim in quicksand; I'm moving full speed - but to what avail?

Lying on the couch of my own inner psychoanalyst while at the same time sitting next to myself, analysing the shit out of me, I have come to focus on the assets, on the things that are still there. And it eases my mind a great deal to realise that everything is not so bad - not so bad at all! In fact, I'm doing great. I have learned to be content on my own every once in a while and, really, I'm getting a lot of things done. And whenever I don't have work to do, I spend a lot of quality time with my real friends.
Still: I have changed. I wouldn't say I have become cynical; but harder in a way I guess.

In a couple of weeks' time, I'm going to a Nick Cave concert. When I saw it being advertised, I thought there was no way I could go there without him (he who shall not be named). Then I mentally slapped myself across the face, telling myself that him being gone doesn't mean that the things we shared and that were important to us are gone as well. And again, the same precious friend made me realise that sometimes you just have to let people go in order for them to make room for new great people. That's not losing - it's just taking care of yourself.

So even if he's gone and although it took me a long time to come to see: Nick Cave (representative for many other people and things) is still there and I feel like I have finally opened my eyes to see clearly.

Because into my human heart life filled me
With love up to the brim and killed me
And rebuilt me back anew with
Something to look forward to...

...and anyways: Rock and Roll always wins...!