Holding onto an Absent Friend
Sensory processing takes time for me.
It takes time before I realise that I am cold, hot, or in pain.. or that something is pinching me or even hurting me...
And I have come to realise that what I experience is in fact a condition with a name.
I have learned this at the age of 40.
At the age of 40, looking back to my past relationships, including friendships and companionships, and how I have established and preserved them, I have come to realise that I hold on for too long until I realise how much it hurts me.
I hold on to them when it is hurting and it breaks my soul in the end.
I picture this, in my head, like having a strong grip with two hands, onto what I have nourished. The grip is strong and I don’t feel pain for an unnecessarily long time.
I keep holding while pain is in progress...
First, the fingers get numb and I keep holding.
It then affects the hands, I ask questions. I ask them directly.
People however are never direct.
Let me go I say and they tell me to stay. So I do.
But the pain is growing and I now start feeling it. They shake me off which starts hurting the arms too. Fingers are still numb and the hands are still in pain.
I ask them to let me go but they never admit and it takes time for me to process it all.
I hold on for way too long.
I only stop holding when it is a full-fetched catastrophe. With the arms broken. That I have nothing left to hold onto.
I didn’t get the signals in time I tell myself.
And the absent friends regret the way they treated me, often years later.
Yet, when the regret comes, I no longer have the arms to open.
Because I held on to the absent friends for way too long.
