I received a message: “I’m gonna keep visiting you so… we have a lifetime.”
And it kind of felt like this avalanche came crashing down onto my deserted heart. This realization that I’ve been treating everything in my life as temporary. To protect myself. New York City does that to you. I think in hours, days, sometimes months. Everything is finite. The light, the warmth, the space, the cold, the seasons when half a pint of blueberries costs $13, the waits for the subway, the eternal pulse of the night, the snowstorms, the leaves changing, the feeling that someone loves you. The hope that someone may want your company for longer than a few hours, for more than just your body. It is so much easier to convince yourself that it is all momentary, ephemeral.
I command it to be, so that when it ends (as it inevitably will), I’ll be prepared.
I flinch at “lifetime” or “always.”
But today. “We have a lifetime” calmed everything down. Everything felt less urgent, so still. Like it was okay to believe that someone will stand in the sun with me. And keep me company while I make jam. And that the light will linger.
“…none of us can get
far enough away from each other
and none of us can get close enough.”
– Dean Young