Letter 21

Dear Josephine,

In that age-old phrase about bridges, I find that I've always focused on the latter clause about burning, and disregarded the former clause about crossing. Additionally, when I have approached the saying from both angles, I've applied the "crossing" to my "public" life (which I'm defining as job, school, apartment; basically the components that present myself to others) and the "burning" to my "private" life (which I'm defining as my personal thoughts, my relationships with others, etc. - the components that take longer to reveal). I realize my qualification of this statement renders supposedly different spheres of my life as contingent on two opposing actions: moving forward, and moving away. How, then, is it that my personal life tends to take leaps, and my private life tends to retreat?

Even while I pose this question, I do not find it surprising. I find safety in independence, on living for myself rather than living for myself and another. I wonder, though, if I'm losing something in maintaining that type of freedom. Funny, I've always embraced tennis as my favorite sport to watch. I wonder if it's because on that court love means zero, means having nothing, means making one's way from the bottom to a concrete "match point" -- as if "love" never meant anything other than trying to obtain a point for one's self, or for the sake of the game.

lcs