We wake up one day, and we are disappointed in everything we see. We look around and see too much left undone, and see too much that should never have been done. Maybe it was all a series of mistakes, or one mistake, or a lack of luck, or a failure of faith or just sheer neglect. Maybe we wake up and realize that everything has to change today. Maybe we realize that today may be the last day, our last chance in a long series of chances to mend the threads of a life spread thin over too many sedentary days. Maybe we roll over and say we will begin in an hour, or two hours, or next week when we have had more time to think about what it is that we have to do to improve ourselves. Maybe we should hold off on what it is that we should be doing so we can have a firm set of goals and a concrete plan of action so that we do not lose ourselves in some directionless folly, which we so often do, don’t we?
We wake up and realize that, last night, she did not come to us in our dreams. We understand that she is fading from our minds. We are beginning to forget all we lost in her, when she went away, and this is of course good and necessary. We see less of her in songs and scenes from movies and other couples walking happily, hands tightly clasped, ignorant of what they too must one day forget. We remember less on rainy days the kisses in the rain, the not wanting to let go, the promises that we both whispered and intended to keep but did not. We remember when we were thinner and more vibrant and confident and optimistic, and we remember why, and we remember how free and invincible we felt when we were with her. We wake up next to another her now, and realize that, though we often cursed our subconscious for working against us, we now have no one to blame but ourselves that our thoughts continually turn to a her who lost sight of us long ago. We want and do not want to love the her now beside us, now sworn to us, now so eager to love us, but we cannot get out of bed to begin our lives again. We just want to stop existing for awhile, but our eyes keep opening. We only want to sleep and think a little less each day of how we were once immortal.
