I Saved the Knife

Once upon a time my mother handed me a stamp album and a bag of stamps she had purchased at some local post office or stamp book store. I diligently went through the bag of stamps and affixed them to their proper page in my Traveler Stamp Album.

Stamp collecting is kind of fun, but eventually the album was packed away. In time, it became part of The Archives. Today, I brought up the last of The Archive boxes. At the very bottom was my stamp album, hidden away. It was the last thing I unpacked. Interesting that it should be the final item to retrieve, considering the secret it held for me.

This particular box had not been opened since 1988. How do I know? Because of the secret it was hiding. I found the knife which cut my guts out in 1988.

If you're interested in something, go to The Great Sea and look at the post titled, "The Archives Have Been Opened". Examine the list of story ideas and see if you recognize any similarity in the stories. Then return here. If you're not interested, continue reading.

waiting

waiting some more

and just a little more

The common thread is that ALL of the stories predate 1989. That's how I know the last time this book was opened. This is where I put the knife. I had forgotten I had kept it.

The knife is not a physical knife, as I am sure you have already surmised. It is a letter, handwritten on both sides of a sheet of spiral bound paper. It still has the ragged edges from where it was tore from its binder. It is the official notice of the end of a most important friendship. It was the friendship which had successfully replaced the one I lost when Stephen and I had parted ways (for what I believed to be forever). It was the friendship which spawned such a wealth of creative ideas I felt overwhelmed. I couldn't keep up with the things that were coming to my mind. Just from the list I've posted, there were 11 story ideas in 1987 alone. But I found another list I haven't posted which contains no less than forty story ideas. I found myself reciting them instead of writing them. That's why they're not finished. They were never written. They're oral legends. My friend was a voracious reader, but willing to hear a story first hand from the author, and I exhausted myself coming up with new stories. Now the friendship was over.

It did not come as a surprise. I had been expecting it for several months. Sometimes, I seem to know when certain things are going to change. The details are always fuzzy, but the generality is there. I don't think it's so much "magic" as it is part of my brain seems to subconsciously process clues which others ignore. I say this because, after the fact, it is so easy to go back and see the clues. I had predicted this letter in the spring. It arrived at the end of summer. August.

When Stephen found me just seven years later I thought happiness had returned. Then he died. And so did so many others.

I've read this letter a couple of times now today. While it gives no joy, it does not wholly dampen my newfound feelings of optimism. After all, I have lived with this letter for more than twenty years now. The message has remained in my heart. It still hurts, but I have learned to live with this pain. I had forgotten about the knife, though.

The knife has been returned to its hiding place, to be found again on some other day. Why do I keep it? I'm not sure. Something tells me it's important to do so. It is not my intention to read it again until after I've forgotten where it is. Just like now.

My life had already been sliding when this letter arrived, so the letter does not represent the beginning of my time in the Swamp of Despair and Sadness. Remember, I had already lost Stephen. What it represents is the time when I lost sight of stable land. It was the end of Joy and Happiness.

It just strikes me as interesting that not only should I find this letter, but that I should find it now, during the year when my heart tells me I am turning an important corner in my life and am about to shake hands with Joy and Happiness again such as I have not known - perhaps ever. It is also interesting that I should find it while traversing nearly forty years of my history, because I so often live in the past. Most interesting of all is that, this was the last thing I found.

I think maybe I have come to another ending. Only this time, instead of representing the end of Joy and Happiness, the knife is representing the end of a dismal time in a dark and noisesome swamp of unbearable scent. I am more convinced than ever that things will get better this year. Maybe it is time to try again and repair a friendship which has been dead for so long.

I don't think so. I have new friends now. And I like them (you) very much.

I don't need to search for my happiness. I already have it.

Thank you, my friends.