sketches.

some of you are rejoicing. some mourn. some are cherishing their victories, while others mourn their defeats. i have no words to say to you about the things that you have accomplished. i feel pride of course. sympathy. sorrow. but with these words, i need only to tell you, each of you, how inredibly grateful i am for every moment that our paths have crossed. to say you have shaped my life would be the grossest understatement. you have challenged me to my core, changed my thinking, changed my heart. i could thank you, but it is insufficient. words fail. and yet, where my words failed, you gave me my voice. where my hope died, you gave me pride. the ending of this phase, i pray, will not be the end. but not matter where our paths take us, you should know that i will always look back on these days with gratitude for the ways in which you loved me. 

*****

as writers, we tend to find our worth in constructing or creating. words give us power, significance. validation. you ask, then, what i’ve learned. have i changed? i risk, perhaps, the censure of my fellow writers when i venture to explain it. i have learned… that sometimes, words fail. the greatest constructions of the mind and pen can sometimes not adequately describe the wonders we experience. twenty-si letters, i argue, cannot adequately sum up every detail of our human experience. some things must be sensed. some things must be felt, tasted, seen, touched, heard. take laughter. i can tell you that i laughed this weekend, and you would acknowledge it. but until you have laughed as i have laughed, unless you have tasted laughter, you cannot understand. i have tasted laughter - the sweet aroma it gives to your throat, the way your mouth seems stretched, alive, crinkling at the corners as if to enfold every sweet moment you are givven.i could tell you that i cried this weekend, but unless you have cried the way i  have, unless you have tasted the bittersweet saltiness of tears, the burning in your eyes, you will not grasp it. you ask what i learned this weekend, and i find it difficult to tell you. i find it easiest to sum it up in this way - this weekend i learned to feel as i have never felt before. i have experienced some of the most dizzying heights of human emotion, and i have experiences its darkest lows. but only in this weekend did i recognize their power. only now do i realize the strengths of humanity, and how together, we stand whole. i find myself at a loss for words today, as i have for the past three days, and it is the best feeling. to experience a love so simple, beautiful, powerful, that i cannot shape it with words and put it in a box. these are my words, my memories. the only ones i have. they are enough.