How do you do it?
That's a question I've wanted to ask a lot of people. Grams, Lif, Addie, Xan, Eduwiges, Miss Gwyn, even Neth. But that one question seems to sprout a whole field of other questions.
How do you live with such heavy burdens?
How do you continue down the road you were put on? Or, rather, how do you continue down the road you set yourself on?
How do you put that first food forward when you feel the same as you ever were and yet something inside has changed? And, is the change going to last forever? Are there some hurts that can never heal over completely? Can they only be carried?
How do you make a sort of peace with the life you knew when your heart knows that you can't go back?
Moyna, my Grams, told me to ask Xandilif who would know better. But I can't seem to bring myself to. I can't make my mouth open and the words come out. And it isn't because I fear what she might say. It is because I am afraid she might have nothing to say. I am afraid that what I fear the most will be true, that Lif hasn't really been truly 'living' with it. I'm afraid I will find out that she has been continuing on from battlefield to battlefield because it is what she is good at and what she has done all her life. If all that is true, then what can I do about it?
I can remind her that she is loved. I can remind her that she is good at other things besides fighting - like making up swears and drinking folks under the table. I can remind her that she is more than just a scabbard for SilverWand. I can remind her that she is a person. Not a living dead person. So long as she is still here, she is still a living person.
But, am I up to the task? Make no mistake, I'll try with all my might. Except, my might wasn't good enough then and now someone is dead. How can I make sure it will be good enough now when I feel like I'm hanging on the edge of a very high cliff? I can't pull her up if I can't pull myself up.
What in the world am I holding on to?
That's what I held onto before; the world. Everything I ever wanted to see, the feel of the road under my feet, the flowers that bloom when the spring rains have watered the ground, the cold winds that blow in the late autumn, and all of the many people - some friends, some not - that I have met along the way.
I still want all those things. I want them as badly as I did when I was a child and knew nothing of the burden I carried inside me. Isn't it strange, that I never really felt how horrible and terrible that burden was until it was taken off my shoulders?
Then why does not having the weight feel heavier?
I feel another want rearing its ugly head. I didn't know I wanted them both until I saw them in that moment when I got myself back at Fornost. I saw their faces and heard their voices and I loved them. And I wanted them. I still want them. But I can't have them, can I? They're gone beyond anyone's reach now; my mother and my father. I remember nothing of them but I miss them.
I want them so badly! I want all the moments we missed. I want to tell them everything they missed and learn everything about them. What they like and dislike, what their favorites are, what they wanted out of their own lives, and even everything they went through in Angmar. Losing them in that moment was like losing them a hundred times over. I did not even get to say goodbye.
It makes me angry. But feeling that anger scares me. I don't think I can feel it properly. If I do, it is a jumbled mess I can't make a lick of sense from.
But all that doesn't much help now, does it? Lif and I will be setting out to Evendim soon and I must watch out for her as best I can. It isn't exactly a happy place for her. Nethrida will be going to Bree with Miss Cat and her friends. I offered to write a letter to Rue, even though she doesn't like me much, explaining some of the situation so that Miss Cat's lack of memories won't leave her without some of the friends and such she had there. But, Miss Cat said no, so I didn't. So I'll have to trust that Miss Gwyn will look after her. And I'll have to trust that Neth will look after Addie, Miss Elsa, and Ryn, who have been waiting for us to get back. And maybe I should think about writing a letter to Xanderian, Calidis, and Eduwiges, though I don't know how I'll even begin to explain all this. But, I can't lie and say I don't miss them all badly.
Maybe, this is the first painful step forward?
