Tonight as I was skimming over some of my older blog postings, I stopped to linger on a couple of recent ones about California and how much I missed it, and I suddenly realized how significantly these feelings have dulled in the last couple of weeks since being back.
On the one hand, it is good to be rid of these feelings of longing, since they really do not get me anywhere nearer to happiness or satisfaction--after all, I have no prospects of going to California in the near future, and a persisting desire to go back would thus be more agonizing than anything else. On the other hand, isn't it sometimes so exciting and validating to love a person or place so much that when it's gone, it becomes the source of such pain? I think it's satisfying because it indicates that one has a source of meaning in one's life.
Although I don't consider my longing for California and for being on vacation a truly tragic tale of separation, I still think it's a good example of how we so quickly lose touch with the immediate feelings we had for something or someone as a result of being separated from them, and it makes me question, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." Does it really? Or is the phrase "how soon we forget" perhaps a more apt way to address this issue of separation?
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