The past eight months

Three years, three months since I first saw you.

Two years, five months since I first said goodbye and walked away so you could live your life.

One year, eight months ago, I tried to help you get out of  your organization. And two months later, you turned on me.

If you'd decided to fight for us three years ago, the pain of those changes would be over by now. Your life would look so much different than it is today and you would be settling into a new pattern with new ideas and new energy, with someone who loved you.

Eight months have passed since our last meeting.

What has your life been like these past eight months?

Are you still trapped? What books are you reading? Do you run? Do you have moments of peace? Have you shut off entirely?

When I saw you in Amsterdam Centraal last May, I hardly recognized you. You were so bleak and ugly. Rage and darkness seethed from you like snakes.You loved me once. How does love turn itself into that? Not by any calculus I know.

Two weeks later, you lied about me - or you signed off on the lie that they made, and you condemned me. In the end, it doesn't matter who invented it. You agreed to it. I still don't understand why. How could you do that?

I remember once, after I'd managed to do particularly good work at a conference in Tanzania in the fall of 2011, Eve followed me back to my hotel room so I could change and we could go to the market. As I dressed, I started to tremble and I couldn't stop. The tears came. I had lost you and the pain overtook me. I was so angry with myself that this sorrow was bigger than I was.

"It isn't getting any better," I told Eve. "I don't know what to do. Maybe this has turned into depression. It is so dark and I hurt so much."

Eve knew it was bad, but she did her best to make a path away from catastrophe. She said, "It isn't depression. It's grief. It hasn't gone away because there is so much of it. You don't know what the quantity of grief is. The volume may be so big that it takes longer to come out."

For me, it still is there. This love and deep grief for you. For me, they are two sides of the same coin. The magnitude of the grief is equal to the magnitude of the love. I must have loved you very much.