House of Cards season 3 is pretty mind blowing (no spoilers, don't fret). One episode featured Tibetan monks practicing the art of sand mandala, which is for healing and purification. Mandalas transmit positive energies to the environment and to the people who view them. Watching the monks work for days on something so beautiful and then be at peace with sweeping it away, reminded me:
Nothing is forever.
As I get older I'm more and more comfortable with this concept. Relationships, jobs, apartments, feelings, life on earth - nothing is static. One point in time someone or something made me happy, at another point, unhappy.
I was dating someone recently and I left a shirt at his place the first time I slept over. Not on purpose, like Rosario Dawson left her pump with Chris Rock in the movie Top Five, but because I actually couldn't find it. There was a giant suitcase in his room that swallowed it up.
I went home in his threadbare old T-shirt that he said he wanted back, with a smile. Weeks later after a few more dates, a few more sleepovers, he disappeared...along with my shirt.
I still have his in my bottom drawer because I have a knack for not misplacing things. He still has mine. Maybe. Or he lost it. Or he threw it away. Or he likes to wear women's clothes. Or, as my guy friend joked: he's using it as a pillow case to remember my scent.
One minute we were laughing in bed, sharing secrets, listening to music, and watching videos while he fed me candy from his recent trip home. Then we weren't.
Nothing is static.
He wasn't "ready for a serious relationship" right now (though I didn't ask). He gets "too intense", he said.
My T-shirt was newish, white and made of linen (immortalized by the above photo in Palm Springs - we will always have that). The shirt was open and flowy and it was mine. White shirts always make me feel pure and free. I liked that guy. I felt relaxed and open around him. I enjoyed getting to know him.
Nothing is forever. Get a new temporary something.
I replaced the shirt this week. Though not exactly the same material or brand, it is white and new and I feel sexy wearing it. And Almost free.
Almost.