20: Loss

School ties, a mobile phone. Heirloom earrings, tacky keyrings. Important emails. Blood from persistent nosebleeds when I was a child. Health from persistent overcommitment as an adult. Buttons, buckles, beads. Too many pairs of sunglasses. My mother. A grandma. A favourite auntie. My perspective, my cool, my temper. Weight. Ten cats, two dogs, a forgotten number of hamsters. Friendship (natural drift). Friendship (chronic neglect). Friendship (immature backstabbing). Friendship (death). Joy. Sleep. Track of time. Skin cells. Hair. Whole toenails.

I'll run out of time before I run out of losses to document. Some of the above weren't really lost; more like I let them go through poor choice. Some were accidental but no less painful for that fact. Some I got back. Some weren't worth getting back. Some I'll never get back over here, but someday.

Through it all I've learnt that life is loss. That though we try our best, relationships and things and people may slip away. Still, we try. We learn where we went wrong. We embrace what's here. When it's time to let go, we do so. We cry. We write long and laboursome journal entries. We draw. We talk to trusted people who are big on hugs, tissues and chocolate; small on useless platitudes. We so discover who really loves us and who needs to be relegated to the category Only Good For Superficial Air Kisses At Social Occasions. We resist the temptation to fill the void with cheap and undeserving substitutes. We bear the pain of emptiness. We ask that it be filled with good. The time invariably comes when we find that it has. We give thanks. We know we'll never forget. We know it was worth it.