Navigating Solutions and Darkness

Photo by  Alice Alinari  on  Unsplash Nymeria was lithe of figure and enigmatic. Enigmatic to me, despite how hard I tried to understand her. Perhaps she did not seem that way to anyone else - perhaps they did not attempt to understand her the way I did. It has often seemed to me that the people in that place were content to stick labels on their fellows and leave it at that. There was little introspection, and no one wondered whether they'd made the right assessment.  Perhaps nobody cared enough to do that for anyone else. Perhaps it wasn't right to care. I do not know. As the years pass, my understanding of that place diminishes rather than grows, and I too become content to stick labels and forget all about it. Nymeria was light to me in a dark place. I loved her - I know that now. Perhaps I grew jealous - of her female friends, certainly. Male friends she had few.  The Nymeria I saw was strong, even headstrong. She thought deeply, she liked...

Photo by  Nathan Dumlao  on  Unsplash An old classmate messaged me the minute I sent her a friend request, and that was pretty unusual. Perhaps it shouldn't be, but it was. I came across her profile when a bunch of pictures were uploaded, featuring other old classmates who are on my friend list, and who were celebrating the engagement of an old classmate. I wasn't particularly surprised by the engagement (also unusual), but this was because I'd been told about it in advance.  And then I wondered who this D.M. was, who had uploaded the pictures. I certainly did not know any D.M. The profile picture wasn't clear, but as I went through the pictures and noted that D.S. was in them, the dreadful truth began to dawn on me. I went to her profile to see whether my suspicions were true, and realized I wasn't even friends with her on Facebook. I sent her a request that she immediately accepted, and thus we come full circle to how I came to be speaking to her....