Impermanence. The antithesis to the forever two little girls imagined on a trampoline. We wondered about God and the blackness when we closed our eyes and we were ten and rolled the word forever on our tongue. Testing it. Praying for it.
I’ve wanted to believe in it. But now I want to believe in change. I want to find magic in candles that burn out and loves that rise and fall and closed doors and open windows and every metaphor that has risen from the truth: that nothing lasts forever. And that is beautiful.
Please make it beautiful.
On days I’m reminded of paths my life didn’t take I search for every prop I can to keep me on my feet. I try to steady on the foundation I’ve been building for my life. I slip still, but do not crash. I feel thin but not torn and I’ll thicken again. I’m almost resigned to the pattern of breathing through my grief. It gets easier.
I slipped because life changes and I once believed in forever. I once believed in red strings of fate that would lead to me where I was meant to be, no matter how tangled the journey. I don’t believe in meant to be, but I do believe I hold that red string. I am my own fate. I am already where I’m meant to be. I have agency over my life.
But I don’t hold the red string for those around me. It makes for messy collisions or stretched out yarn fraying in my fingers. It makes me mourn that my choices sometimes land me on an island. Swim to me I’ll call or I’ll breathe life into my own future made of sand and clay. I’ll tell stories someday of the distant shore.
But when all my metaphors break and I want to crawl into bed and order Pizza Hut and throw out all my rules, just for a bit, I am thankful and resentful that I’ve set my life up in such a way where I cannot. Where I get out of bed and smile and try and pet my bruised heart in-between meetings. Where I go move my body instead of fill it up with red wine and where I turn on music and write (and yes, drink a hard cider) and try to explain how impermanence scares me more than forever ever did.
It takes more courage to love the moon than the sun. To love the cycles more than the ceaseless light. But the moon I can stare at all night; it will never make me blind.
With Love,
Natalie