Perdurance

As a journalist I've always been most interested in the connections between various pieces of information, the themes that tie stories together. Being a specialist has never much interested me.

My view of relationships with people is similarly biased -- that for every two people who get involved with each other, there is a third entity -- their connection with one another -- that is created in the process. Outsiders can observe, but ultimately never really know about the depth of that connection. It's a mystery much of the time even to the twosome in question.

So, over recent years, I've become fond of saying there are these three entities -- person A, person B, and their relationship (A+B=C). Both A and B might be absolutely fine and C can still fall apart -- and often does. After all, half of all marriages end in divorce. Unmarried couples must have an even worse success rate.

But that is only measuring a relationship by how it ends, which is a questionable metric, at best. It takes work for C to work. But until very recently, I always assumed that if A and B loved each other, C would be okay in the end. The main problem, I thought, was when either A or B started falling out of love; then C would be doomed. And that had been my personal experience in life.

I had never had the experience that A and B could remain very much in love, but C would have to end anyway.

Now I have, so I am in the midst of learning this hard life lesson. Or, I assume that is what is going on. So, if I were to play the part of B in this story, and my lover were to assume the role of A, I have become the one left behind as A has moved on, insisting as goes that we are broken up, even when it has been hard to honestly feel that she is right about this.

As we all realize, conventional wisdom dictates that my role as B is to let her go, get over her, and learn how to move on.

As in all such cases there are outside observers, however, who beg to differ, at least slightly. These include those who have been watching what is happening and have insights that we may not have. They may not be able to see into the relationship's opaque aspects, but they see what they see, nonetheless. So today, I received a message from somebody in a far better position than I am to gauge what is really going on with A, because she has known her much longer than I have, and has been closer in most ways to her than I have been able to be. Here is what she wrote me:

"I think time just needs to pass, take great care of yourself and we
shall see what happens. Who knows how this story will end."

This is the kind of sentiment that I expressed several posts ago when I said a story is never over until the writer has found the life-affirming aspect. In my case, although I am doing my best to play my appointed B role -- letting A go and moving on myself -- I can't quite suppress an instinct that my correspondent sees complexities among our possible outcomes that do not fit quite so neatly into A's "break-up" scenario.

In my ABC analysis, however, both A and B have to do their part to keep C's chances alive. One cannot do it alone, can he? Tonight, late on a Saturday in chilly San Francisco, I cannot help but wonder what my counterpart, the aforementioned A, might be thinking and feeling far away from here in warm Mississippi. Can she allow her own ambiguities to continue to breathe when she has made such dramatic moves, and been so blunt with me about what is happening to us?

It's much too early in this process for me to harbour any kind of realistic hope that my correspondent is correct that our outcome remains very much up for grabs. On the other hand, it was B herself who recently said to me, in another but related context, "Anything is possible." I've spent my whole life seeking the truth, and here is what I say: It's not over until it's over.

It isn't over yet.