One thing you learn down the road, later on in life is that you never really stop loving that one person you truly loved. It sticks with you all your life. Follows you everywhere. Shapes you as a person. Moulds you into being more kind and caring. Changes how you perceive things. Stirs your soul forever, in an unimaginable magical way. You don’t disrespect what you had. You continue to love them from a distance and appreciate everything they did for you.
You wish them all the happiness anyone has ever made, pray that you get to see them reaching all their goals they once never stopped telling you about, hoping to see their face light up somewhere in Venice just through your phone, knowing that they finally made it. You come to peace with the fact that when it’s true, you can love them with the same madness even from a far..
It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours—arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be.
Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn? Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven’t the answer to a question you’ve been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause of a room full of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you’re alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful if you listen carefully.
