a natural drift

For all who feel they don’t quite fit
Inspired by and in memory of Chris Winter, 8/6/86 – 4/5/16

Sometimes this world was too large for you. Sometimes, too small.

Too large because it seemed you could not find your place.  It didn’t always feel inviting.  Didn’t offer an easy chair to kick-back, where you could sink in and be yourself.

Too small because it could not contain what you brought into this space, what you filled it with – your heart, your laughter, your humor, your spirit.

Sometimes, I remember, when you entered the room, what you presented to the world screamed that you were unapproachable, don’t touch, hands-off. Let me be. But on the inside you sought acknowledgement, notice, connection.

On other days, the exterior you presented to the world whispered “Here I am. Notice me” and your interior throbbed with loneliness, sadness, with fatigue from your struggle to be in that world that was, at the same time, too big and too small.

I could feel your state of being when we would hug – even if it was brief – because you would either relax into the embrace, body heavy against my chest, your arms embracing back. Or, on bad days, your grip would be limp, your torso rigid. Those days you needed to be held more but you desired it less.

You had such unbridled creativity and didn’t always know how to channel it. Your fascination with The Stanley Hotel, and by extension, King’s The Shining, was riveting to observe. You knew the architecture, knew the backstory. And that time you built the replica of the Titanic! You knew details about the Titanic that we didn’t. You knew answers to questions we didn’t even know to ask.

Maybe we always struggled with that, knowing which questions to ask.

You didn’t see the world as others do – and you wondered why. You saw this disconnect as something “wrong” with you – rather than seeing it, maybe, as a shortcoming in the world around you.

Sometimes I wondered, we asked, why you couldn’t see the world, see you, as we did. Was that the wrong question? Maybe we needed to ask how you saw the world.  Did you see it as too big, one vast ocean? Or too small like the chamber of a heart? How can we fit in this space that seemed sized for somebody else?

You were fiercely independent yet had such close bonds with those you would let in. And when we were in, you were fiercely loyal and loving. Which is why losing you touches us so deeply. We thought that since we were in, we knew you. We had you and you, us.

Strength to fight yet tenderhearted; bold but sheepish; spirit and flesh; engaging but distant.

Oh, how we wanted to bridge that distance.

This entry was posted on April 5, 2017 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Observations, People. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.