I M Perfect lady

When I think about the multiple estranged relationships I have, I see them leaving holes in my life.  Unfinished but finished.

How a conversation unfurls and flows, creating an end.

Truths are spoken and rejected.

Space is needed.

Empty now.

How memories are left without someone to remember them with.

Daily lives unshared.

Nothing related anymore.

Familiar strangers.

Deaths before dying.

Memories more alive than the living person.

Relationships had to die to preserve my truths…and for their lies to remain their truths.

Memories are now distorted fragments…too small to fill the holes.

Too big to fade away.

Emotions mixing.

Reality questioning.

Estrangement is stranger than being a stranger.

For it has memories, emotions, connections.

It is to become a stranger who knows.

A phantom friend.

I'm not sure there is a protocol for reversing friendships…for dialing back to stranger…to be set aside or to set aside.  It seems it is always uncomfortable and takes years to adjust.

Perhaps you grow into strangers by the lack of new experiences shared.

Can you put enough space and silence to quell familiarity?

Can you ever not know them…as you would a stranger?

There is not only a past but the moment of ending in this new silent familiar stranger.

I think estrangement from family is harder than friends. For we are used to the cycle of friendships, the ever changing landscapes as we grow.  Friends are known to be for a season, a reason or a lifetime.  Families, we believe are until we die.

And, we share things no one else can truly relate to.

Our DNA of childhood molds us so similar and our memories join in ways friends are not able to.

The holes estrangement leaves in my life are similar to the holes friendships can't quite fill.

Family usually travel with you the whole way…unlike friends who hop on and join for awhile.

To be set free on a solo voyage…after starting out with a boat full.

I believe that estrangements are life's natural actions; the culling and trimming, as you grow and evolve on your journey.  Perhaps what is more un-natural is keeping things the same. Holding on even when the truths would push you apart.

I would like to come up with a friendlier term for familiar strangers.

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