Strings

There are things I just don't want to loose. Things that I'm attached to. And, there are things that I'm not attached to and want to leave behind. There are even things that I don't want to be attached to, yet I am. Some of these things are objects, ideas, and locations. But mostly, they're people.

i imagine these connections as pieces of string. some are mere thread that can be broken fairly easily, quickly and with fairly little pain. Others are made of a ribbon that is beautiful, until I try to break it. I can't, at least by myself. if I want to break it, i need scissors to make a clean quick cut. others are made out of twine and can't be broken quickly, but have to be worn down. still others are made out of wire. they can't be broken. Or worn down. Or cut. sometimes this is a good thing, the wire is clean and shinny. other times the wire is frayed and rusted brown and if I attempt to even touch it, i'll get cut.

Frayed wire. Those are the ones I'm afraid of.

Not because I can't get rid of them, but because I can't fix them. I'm OK with these strings, attachments, connections, relationships. But, if they get to the point of me getting cut every time I try to fix them, I stop trying. 

With some of these seemingly impossible frayed wires, I can feel myself stopping to try.

Perhaps this should scare me just as much as my inability to fix them.

Now, this isn't to say that i will never pull on these strings again, but perhaps less often. One can only put so many band-aids before he might as well put on gloves. Gloves slow you down, but you never have to worry about getting cut, but you also miss the real connections in life if you always have thick leather separating you and others. And let me tell you, neither band-aids nor gloves are any fun.

So here's my theory, mind you, it isn't perfect. 

friends should be like twine. there's lots forgiveness when things get tough, the relationship can take a lot of wear. But they can break if the wearing or stress gets too much.

objects and places should be like thread. there is attachment, but it can be broken fairly easily. more importantly, if an object or place is pulling you in one way, and friends are pulling in another, the thread will break first.

finally, there's family.  here's where i'm not sure. Ideally, they'd be the clean cut wire. Always there when you pull and the connection won't stretch if it's yanked.

Usually, that's not the case.

we can usually pick our friends, our places and our objects, but we can't pick out our family. So it seems as though we also can't pick what our connections are like.

I guess all this to say, things are messy right now. perhaps not on their end, but on mine. The wire is getting frayed and they don't seem to mind or notice and i think it's because of the thick gloves that we have on. While I try to repair our wire, our connection, our relationship, I'm vulnerable. I keep taking off my gloves to do a better job at this meticulous task because these gloves that can't be penetrated by wire also make it difficult to grasp those same small strands of wire. But I'm not sure it's worth it in the end. 

Because if I do manage to fix this frayed attachment, once I get there, they still have those thick leather gloves on.