For my oldest and dearest reader

You know who you are.

In different ways, you and I are both combatants. We love challenges and are stubborn, sometimes almost antagonistic in our approach to problems. I myself have even gone so far as to look for problems where there may well be none, simply because the mechanics of analysis, debate and experimentation are so rewarding.

That sounds great.

Ultimately though, shit things in life feel like shit.
Over the years I’ve learnt many things, and these days I’m less discouraged directly by difficulty in life, however I still find myself thinking over the nature of my enthusiasm for open-conflict and great trials. Am I getting older and running out of energy? Is my illness coming more and more into play as I age? Am I finally getting tired of all the fireworks and beginning to crave the simple acceptance that ultimately all humans desire?

We’re affectionate people, both of us.
We are physically expressive, verbally expressive, always willing to open the flood-gate when it comes to sharing in intimacy. These are wonderful attributes, but they can make it much more difficult to be patient and sometimes empathic. Certainly not in all cases, but in instances where things are not as immediately clear as we would like, we tend to be guided by our tempers rather than stopping the momentum of our frustration and doing a little bit of slow-thinking and reflection. We’re agile people, well accustomed to moving quickly through many things, so much so we cultivate this agility with our friends.

And then we encounter the greatest of our difficulties.

I wonder what it would be like for us, if we didn’t have to fight and beg for what we want. To be understood and not to totally eliminate conflict, but to finally attain that sense of faith we aspire to so much where we know that whatever difficulty we face in our intimacies, we can trust that we will be heard, we will eventually overcome our own stubbornness and after much kicking and screaming, come to a beautiful outcome where we know more about ourselves and our partners.

Perhaps this a little of what these hardships are for; so that I can talk to you about them, so that we can share them with one-another, half the world away. The nature of being separated so affords us intimacies that are denied to other people, and denies us intimacies to which others have physical and immediate access. It’s a strange dynamic, but it would be the singular instance in my life where I have actually experienced a mutually cultivated friendship facilitated by the internet. If all I ever gained from using this wasteland of cultural excess was the pleasure of our discussions, it would be worth the destruction of general language a thousand, million times over. As I decide that more and more sub-cultures are irrelevant to me, it matters not what the kids do with their keystrokes, only that this technology allows us to share intimacies in a unique way, a way that is impossible via any other means.

There is something in you that I see in myself; I know we will always have hardships but perhaps it’s the level to which we know one-another, perhaps it’s the sheer length of time we’ve been reading, emailing and noting, but I have a great desire to see you gain the things you strive for in life. We know that hardship is a natural element to life, yet if there were any call for an irrational sense of perfection and emotional support, I have a want for you to receive these things as much as I want them for myself. There comes a point where we don’t want to engage agility anymore, we don’t want to have to explain everything in great detail; we wish to establish our languages, our dialects, our behaviours, and operate them in the most natural way possible so that even our conflict resolution is natural. It will never alleviate discomfort totally, I’m confident that we’ll continue to have countless awkward and sorrowful phases of our lives, but we embrace these things for their richness, the raw power of the emotions they bring and how they move us through our experiences. We want someone to understand these things; someone immediate, someone present, someone to hold our hand, sit with us when we weep, and to laugh with us as we share joy.

We are as dissimilar in as many ways as we are alike, and that too is worth celebrating. Even now, as you experience another trial of life, and I having just come from one of the worst albeit brief down-cycles of my illness, still think of you with a fondness, familiarity and pride that only comes from the most precious of friendships. I celebrate your life – what little I know of it, with the little of my life that I have shared with you. In comparison to the people we interact with daily, it seems such an unjustly small portion, yet its value is immeasurable and its lasting impact enduring. I am as concerned for you now as much as I am confident in you, that no matter how messed-up things may get for us, we see things through to wondrous and beautiful places. We bring with us a few scars, the pain of the woundings something we may never forget, but nevertheless wear with pride.

I don’t want to replace the way you’re feeling now with blind and directionless positivity, as much as you would never expect the same when I’ve shared my struggles with you. What I hope for is that at the same time as those things that I have no desire to banish, those difficult, frightening, exhausting and sorrowful things, that you remember that they are part of what makes you beautiful, that they exist along with all of the wonderful talents you have, and that the sum-total of all of that energy is a wonderful person that I continue to be amazed that I am privileged to know.

In fine, traditional nav/vroenis style, I write a long exposition to represent a very simple thing;

Thank you.
For everything.