Connection

There is this line, this thread that stretches between you and me. I have drawn it tight and thin, on purpose. It is almost invisible. You can see it glittering barely, delicately, so fragile in the sunlight. Unless you move suddenly away from me, I don’t even feel its presence. It would be so easy for either of us to break it. That’s really the point. Neither of us seemingly wants it to be indestructible. Its implied temporary nature reassures us. This is no threatening steel cable binding us relentlessly together. We can tell ourselves and each other that our connection is voluntary, transient, in flux. We dance lightly around each other, at each end of our thread, attached but never confined.

There are times, though, when I feel that my end of the thread has become somehow sewn into my skin, wound tightly around my waist, entangled in my hair. I am starting to feel it each time you move unexpectedly at your end, like a slight but increasing resistance that becomes more uncomfortable the more I fight it. I don’t think that it’s your action, so far away, at your end of the thread, which has caused my new sense of restraint. I think that when we created our connection, it was made light by the others between us. They held the line aloft, took the weight of what attaches us, allowed us to believe that it was almost, but not quite, non-existent.

Gradually, though, they’ve tired of that responsibility. Allowing us the luxury of ignoring reality is not reason enough for them to continue in that role. One by one, they’ve put down their burden, and with each abandonment, each minor treason, I feel the tug of you, a small twitch, an insignificant but cumulative pull. Ultimately, though, the more aware I become of what binds us, the more likely I am to lose my balance when you pull suddenly on the thread. I trip, I fall, I dangle over the edge of the precipice, suspended in mid-air, but secure and safe, held by the quixotic fragility of the connection we have forged. Don’t let go.