It Begins

Isn't it funny how sometimes in life you focus so hard on one thing, you completely forget everything else you care about? And then after that one thing disappears, all of life rushes back at you and you realize everything you missed out on is still there. Yet once your eyes have been opened, it is so hard to recognize what you have when contrasted with that which you have missed...

And all the colors and sounds rush back at you, obliterating reality and stretching it into a wash of desires and regrets, pushing and pulling at every part of you. And while pieces of me long for what I have missed, others see only what lies ahead... and in this strange mix of hopes and wishes, I find myself quite lost.

And in this lost confusion, I find myself wanting to tell those whom I love exactly what they mean to me. To somehow feebly find words to tell them how valuable they are to me, to put words to the sadness I feel and to illustrate to them how beautiful they are in my eyes. Yet I am terrified I will forget, that meetings will be delayed and words forgotten: for time is cruel, delaying when the passage is hard, flying by when it is easy. And for some reason, it is always a shock to look behind your shoulder at what has passed; to realize how far down you sank and how little you realized the difference between truth and blinding emotion.

And so it begins, the sad departure of everything I've come to know and love.

My Melancholy Sadness

Today while at work, I saw one of the most beautiful fragments of love that exists. A man came in, a ragged, sad look on his face, tiredness worn into his features, and as I made his drink for him we started to talk. His wife is in the hospital, and he has spent the last week sleeping on a cot next to her bed; his every thought resting on the comfort of the one person he loves so dearly. And as he told me the meager details of her illness and his fears, a sketch of this deep love formed its vague outlines in my brain, and I could not erase him and his worried cares from my mind.

Despite the incredible last few days I have had, for some reason tonight I sat apart, silent and alone, neither desiring to speak up nor to be with the crowd in which I sat. Irritation with my own feelings, a certain feeling of frugality and worthlessness hung over my night, shadowing any enjoyment I felt. Perhaps it was the feeling of another wasted day, or perhaps the dreading of the monotony of another week of work.

Whereas my fears before found root in the uncertainty of the future, my mind has replaced this old fear with a fear of losing my dearest memories to the passage of time. Time washes though your memories, leaving the giant boulders smooth and flawless while washing the little details of the memories off the face of the boulders, dragging the tiny surrounding pebbles out to sea. I do not want to lose my pebble memories, and in this quiet fear, I cannot stop the shapes from leaking down my face. These small drops crudely display the excess of emotion and weakness I feel: this feeling of being dragged helplessly through time, unable to fight nor delay the inevitable changes.

Life changes, and despite the stubborn tantrums we humans have, it is a sad truth we can either accept or fight all our lives, filling the spaces with the tears and the dirt of our fruitless labors. Why is it that I find myself fighting so hard to secure my own spot on which to stand?