but the rest of this is much too hard to face

We say forever and mean it. We say forever like it's never going to end. We say forever like we have any sort of comprehension what "forever" means.

I'm hopping around a lot, my inventory's a nightmare. Point to point, pictures, objects, old projects, clothing. Culling, cutting where I can. Hair. Eyes should probably be next.

Sometimes we even qualify. 'Until the stars grow cold'. 'Until the seas run dry.' 'Until the sun stops rising.'. We have no concept of what these things mean, either.

Notecards. Bogging down on notecards, because....oh, some of them are easy. Information manuals. Explanation cards. Thank you notes, to, from, because...doesn't seem to matter. Little snips of conversation, saved for reasons I've long forgotten, now gone into ether. Easy.

Love dies for a multitude of reasons. Happy ever after doesn't last as long as it did. Always isn't always for long, once love is gone.

Not all of it is easy. I've saved...more than I thought I had, on notecards. Encounters--Emcounters, to use Lord Cymru's phrase again--of all kinds, bits of humor, song lyrics, poetry, and...romantic liaisons. Things, mayhap, I never should have saved. Slices of a past where I was loved, by those named.

Brought forward to a future, where I'm no longer loved, forever...

But sometimes...sometimes...we're given second chances. Thin tendrils, growing from the corpses of old loves, reaching out for light and life. It's never what it was. It couldn't be. For all we can't understand 'never', either.

The only thing in all this that doesn't hurt is, in some cases, what I used to have has become something I've fought to retain, in altered form. One I cared for is still a dear friend. And because of that, anything he asks for, his lady wife asks of me, I do my utmost to do for them.

One I cared for is still trapped in drama, and still has shadows in his eyes, when he sees me. Suppose it's fair, so do I. Mayhap I always will. But I proved we can stand in the same room and talk, I can sit with him, and the world will not fall down.

But after the pain and the anguish, after the flames have died down to embers, sometimes, there's enough warmth left to sustain...something. Friendship. Connection. Understanding.

Hasn't worked in all cases. In some cases, the best I may be able to hope for, this month, twelve months down, twenty-four...is tolerance. In some cases the hurt may sink too deeply beneath the surface to be healed, in any way.

I'll find a way to cope with this, too. And in the meantime, scatter all those memories to the far winds, let them go at last, all the times someone said they loved me, with all the meaning then...that's not present now.

I know me. I can't get rid of everything. First nights, I think I'll keep...

But little else.

Down to 37,990, when last seen. And still going.