Doing without...

I am increasingly feeling like the things that happen to me contain a hidden message about something significant. Recently, absence or abstinence has been a recurring theme. But as for the lesson to be learnt here, I am still mumbling/bumbling in the dark.


1. Two weeks ago: the day before midsummer, I lost my cellphone and was without it for four days. I actually didn't suffer much as I thought from not being able to call anyone I pleased at any time I pleased, but I got plenty of sympathy from friends. I'll admit that it was inconvenient, but in the light of previous events, it was probably a buffer to stop me from anguishing about getting messaged or not. Also, I discovered that THERE ARE STILL PAY PHONES in existence! I even called a friend from one of them and felt reeeeally old school. :)
Although they are frickin expensive.

2. Last week: I had barely gotten my phone back when on Thursday I managed to download a virus to my work laptop. (It was an embarrassingly clumsy circumstance as regards online saftety behaviour, btw...) So the IT service guys (who I suppose deserve to get an occasional good laugh at dimwits like me) had to kidnap my computer for 4 days and wipe the whole thing out (i.e. erasing everything on it). Leaving me without a work tool! That was a significant abstinence experience. I hadn't realized that my connectivity and 'toolbox' had become a constant companion, both at home and at work. I felt pretty handicapped at home, especially, since I couldn't get my modem to install on my Mac Mini (the teeny excuse for a home for a home workstation that I have...).

3. On the saddest note: I agreed with a close friend (see previous posts) that we'd break contact for a while. So far I have (by way of stealth and stupendous hearing-thru-the-grapevine abilities) managed to steer clear of two casual encounters with him (orchestrated by unknowing friends-in-common), and honestly - it SUCKS. Even if there's an end to this hiatus in sight, it's hard dealing from day to day with the fact that a person you realize has gradually become your confidante, partner in crime, co-appreciator of the world and sibling-in-general is... gone. And it's your own choice. The thought of it follows me around all day whenever I'm left to my own devices. But on a positive note, the painful cure seems to be working. I am no longer harrowed 24/7 by wondering if I'll hear from him (because I now KNOW I won't), and no longer fretting that I've said or done something that bugged him (because I now KNOW I don't, now that I can't). And instead, I have started thinking about what I was without him, and what has changed since we got to know each other. All in all, I can count several different ways that I have become a slightly better/richer*/more inspired person because of our friendship. And the reasons why we are friends at all have become much clearer, and I like them all.


I realized that, counting the days from when we ceased contactuntil when we've agreed to meet again, I'll be missing my friend for 44 days. Almost the same length as Lent, in practice. So all in all; this is the strangest lenten season that I've ever experienced, but a telling one. And characteristically for me, it is VERY late. Providence sure knows how to leave a signature.



* Rich in experiences, I mean



PS: I am working on a tap choreography with fellow amateur tappers Nesse and Lars, and we're working on a line-dance parody number to the tune of 'Laura' by Flogging Molly.

I never realized that the song was about someone who's died.
The lyrics are haunting me, they're beautiful:


(...)
This pain in my head escaped from my heart
No woman alive,
Can touch who you were

So bye bye, Laura
Cause no one could take your place

Bye bye, Laura
Your beauty will never fade

They say that your soul
Will reach for the sky.
This love that you leave,
Will never be denied

And after this song, her spirit lives on
Though your not around you'll never be gone


(This, btw, is the song that made me almost break my finger at our 2nd rehearsal - because I kicked it!)