When I went into the office a while ago, my coworker said that, upon hearing that Andrea Gibson had passed, she immediately thought of me. I was embarrassed to tell her that I did not actually know who Andrea Gibson was. Whoops. After doing some research, when I got home, I’m flattered she thought of me. Andrea was a poet, and their words that I’ve seen circulating the most are short and terribly poignant.
“In the end I want my heart to be covered in stretch marks.”
I have not been able to get these words out of my head. They’re so evocative: love as expanding and contracting, love as gain and loss… and the desire to experience it all.
A client of mine is going through an unexpected break up, and he doesn’t want to feel sad anymore. Valid! But we also talked about what it would mean if he didn’t feel sad, and what going through life cut off from emotions would mean.
I think of the various lives I’ve lived, the people I’ve loved and said goodbye to. Even now, I feel torn between my friends who live downtown within walking distance and the friends in East Van who are a 30 minute drive away. I cannot be everywhere with everybody. There are losses every day because by being HERE, I am not THERE.
But what a joy to miss people. What a joy to grieve. I would not, for one second, make my life smaller in order to erase the pain of losing people, communities, cities. I would not erase Woodland, or Athens, or Dallas. My heart is crossed by stretch marks, and I hope there are more before the end.
It Is Trish 