The power of distance

Distance has the power to show you the value of a person.

So does silence.

When you stop looking for them, who comes searching for you?

Friendship – and any type of relationship – is a two-way affair. You can’t be the one constantly chasing people. Heck, you shouldn’t be chasing anyone to begin with. We attract those we deserve, and the energy we emit is what returns to us. So relax. Whatever should, will come to you in time.

Don’t forget that the best stocktaking on life is made on the move – in trains, airplanes, and automobiles. It’s when you’re leaving that you realise what you miss most, who is looking for you, and to whom you want to return. The truest reflections come to you when you’re trying to escape life. It’s when you acknowledge what you’re longing to go back to.

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The hardest part of being away

©Todd Foltz

The hardest part of being forcibly away is not being able to hug you and receive back that warm heartbeat vibration.

The hardest part of being forced to be apart for so long is not being able to join our laughter in chorus in all our inside jokes; in all the things only we find funny.

Forced to be at a distance, we’re never really apart, and you know that.

I can feel you, just like you can sense me. Every mood and every thought resonates within each other.

I would still prefer not to be so many miles away.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

Quarantine news

©Douglas M. MacIlroy

“I had a visitor today! Wait, I’ll show you. I managed to take a photo”. She scrolled through her photo gallery on her phone, while her friend was patiently sipping his coffee on the other end of the line. He smiled at her through his screen as he saw her eyes light up with enthusiasm at the news.

It was their daily teleconference. Well, the morning one. Others would follow during the day.

It was the new quarantine routine. Some moan about it, while others do their best to show that distance doesn’t matter and it can’t keep us apart.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers

The longest distance

Distance is a strange concept. Because technological evolution has made it possible to feel close to people who are oceans apart from us. Yet, sometimes, the distance that separates our minds with people who are right next to us is often unsurmountable.

Distance is often a way to see things differently. To view situations in another light or from another perspective. It shows us things we don’t want to see, we ignore, or we fear of acknowledging. But it also gives us a clearer view. People think they are the centre of the universe, yet from space we are just a dot in a vast solar system; we are too small and insignificant in this infinity.

In the end, it is not the kilometres that divide us, but the emotional distance, that which makes the feeling of loneliness all the more intense. It is said that distance is only a test to see how far love can travel. It is what enhances patience and expectation, sometimes even reinforcing the very feeling of love.

According to Tennessee Williams, “time is the longest distance between two places.” Physical distance can easily be overcome. But time needs courage.

We usually blame the distance for things we don’t want to do or for situations in which we need to justify our behaviour. We curse our fate for the difference caused in our lives by distances of all sorts. Yet, as Democritus said, “people invented lady luck to justify their own lack of will”. It is not distance that separates people. It is the lack of will and the silence. Because in our modern, evolving world, where there is a will, there is a way.

And ultimately, even distance is just a number.

The invisible rope

There is a story the elders of a native tribe used to tell the youth when couples were forced to separate often for days on expeditions outside the village in search for food and resources.

There is an invisible rope that binds two people once they fall in love. That rope keeps them together but not tied to one another. It is what joins them and draws them back to each other when they drift apart. But when one of them reacts and tugs at it as if in an attempt to cut it loose, the rope becomes thinner but it still remains there. It only disappears when both sides decide there is nothing there to keep fighting for. When their relationship has lost all the love, understanding and support it once had and once they stop caring for each other. Like everything in life, relationships are only as strong as you care for them, as the love you put into them, and as the effort you devote into keeping them alive. The point of the rope is to demonstrate the distance between two people is supposed to make their relationship stronger, because it shows them how much the other means to them, how much they fill each other’s lives and how much they want each to be on each other’s side. The rope is supposed to become stronger with the distance, otherwise it is not even worth it.