I've written about this before, but I'd like to think each time I touch on it, I am showing or seeing
something new. I think much of what we write here describes what it means to
grow up, what it means to not be able to return to a prior level of knowledge. There are many examples of this:
the tickle in your stomach on rollercoasters isn't the same, the contact you make with another person's hand or eyes, the
grain and
grid you feel ground into your mind when you go about your
daily routine, the settled-ness of things that you may not always
want to be settled.
It's all in the details. I believe that one of the many things that separates man from other animals is our ability to stare straight at an object and not see it. We can stare off into space, but the space has a dimension to it. It is often a lamp or a poster or the dull edge of a bookshelf, though that is not what we are seeing. It is one of those informal incantations of the human soul staring out into ethereal existance, one that is performed out in public, under our noses, right there, in line at the grocery store.
There are parts of me that simply must press forward. Not an abandonment of my former selves, but a closure found within them. I remember the movie Sybil, in which the title character was able to meet, through hypnosis, her numerous split personalities. She sees, in her mind, all the "people" who have fought from within her for their opportunities to speak up, to protect her, a way for her to cope with all the awful things that had been done to her. There are times where I want to suppress my former selves, but as I get older, I'm finding them more and more sedate, less interested in embarrassing me in public.
I wish I could describe this better. It's the texture of life, the weathered maps of time. The in between stage where you may not know what you're going to do with your life but you do know there are some things you simply can't do anymore, you can't bear them, you just can't.