a loss is a gain
[Driving back to the city from a weekend trip with friends under a summer rainstorm.]
Spring is always a season of many endings, which entails changes, losses, and gains that have yet to fully reveal themselves (they need to be trusted to fully emerge). In past years, this has looked like moving to a new city or a relationship breakup, etc.
June second and third were my friends' graduations; it's been a week since they've moved away from the city and I have yet to fully process their absence. But their absence leaves room for the stone of my life to turn its face and reveal its mossy, humid bottom that's been concealed all this time. And, I guess calling it an 'absence' is too definitive; people come and go in waves. They're only taking less space in my current life, but they're not absent from it; one hand reaching back is enough to remind us of our connection.
All to say, I went on a spontaneous road trip with (old and new) friends this weekend, and it felt something like an invisible door opening, which had been in front of me this whole time but remained blurry, until now.
In a photo dump I posted on Instagram about graduation, I wrote "lots of grad flowers recently and emotions but mostly gratitude bla bla bla." This sums it up.