Tonight, driving down a road both endless and finite, I hoped I'd recognize your headlights, though the lights around the curves became few and far between as the road went on. Even though I'd told you not to come, over and over again. I think we all do that, sometimes. "Push yourself away from your one best friend," yet not let go of the possibility that they could push their way back into your heart even harder. That's how we break our own hearts, again and again.
We all know how things are going to end, ultimately; the only thing that changes and makes living interesting is the way we choose to approach this, the inevitable.
I've never really been sad in the summer. I don't really know if I'd consider myself sad now. But, inevitably, things are different for me than they've been for the last five years, and different for the world than they've been for the last twenty. I'm scared for a lot of our friends. I'm not scared for myself as much as overwhelmed with the responsibility to live, and live well. And missing her. Unspeakably and indescribably so. The littlest things can set me off. I see her in colors and lights and feel her in the sun and in our songs and in the dark. And I know it's real but it's never enough.
What struck me hard, and stays with me significantly, was when Paige said at her service, we've been through missing her - from 3,000 miles away, from a deeply-buried place of powerful drugs and long-lasting nightmares, from holding on so goddamn tightly that we fear even more we might lose her. And now, missing her is all we have to look forward to, in life. That's a very difficult thing to accept and to understand.
We all know how things are going to end, but still, here we are. What are we fighting for? What are we living for? Maybe there's some inherent wisdom that understands why living is worth it. Maybe there's a more conscious feeling that understands why living means more than just staying alive. Maybe not. But I have got quite a long way to go if I ever reach the disheartening conclusion that it's all been in vain.
'Til then, or 'til another moment.
"I've been downhearted, babe,
ever since the day we met."
posted by Allison Francis @ 12:13 AM
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