The Agony No-one Warned Me About

May 5 cont...

I was so focused on my big toes, commiserating with the excruciating pain they were enduring in the name of the descent, that I didn't realise we had descended.

We landed in an idyllic little village called Nabe that could have been in Switzerland, however, the bright green and rustic quaintness was beiged by the announcement that this was where we were to part from our friends. I was so spaced out after the days events that I had no idea who was doing what so I was shocked and didn't have the words to say the words that I didn't know what to say anyway.

Many years ago my dear friend at the time, Sean Morrison and I, were talking about respect. He said that someone had earned his lack of respect. I double took and said Don't you mean they earned your respect? No, he said, everyone got his respect as soon as he met them - but they had to earn the lack of it.

This was a philosophy I ingested immediately but I was now discovering that it was torturous to let people go whom I respected. I have let go many possessions and ideals, forfeited mana, abandoned comfortable but loveless relationships but every goodbye felt like a premature goodbye on this trail and one that I found myself factoring in a quota of dread in the anticipation.

Saying goodbye to Tsusuo San, Akemi San, Mamasan and her son and the other older woman was like saying goodbye to a family and it felt wrenching. When you're alone and have no familiarity with anything around you, seeing the same faces reassuringly and continually in the space of a few hours or days can create such a feeling of warmth and safety that letting go can feel like cutting the chain to an anchor.

I could only wave helplessly, blinded by tears, out the back window as Iwamoto San, Myoko San and I were driven away from our friends who were all waving back at us with the same sadness and regret. Regret that the time we had together would never have been enough and worse, that we would probably never see each other again. At that point, with my heart almost in seizures, I didn't know if I could go through this time and agonising time again...