The One, Twice and Never

“If you can find someone like that, someone who can hold and close your eyes to the world with, then you’re lucky. Even if it only lasts for a minute or a day.” - Kvothe, The Name of the Wind

I suppose then, that I must consider myself lucky. And I do. In spite of the loneliness, in spite of having a road to walk that doesn’t include her walking beside me, at least I had her, and have the memories of her. Call it nostalgia or halcyon if you wish, but I have known her, held her, and closed my eyes to the world with her.

I once wrote her an email with the subject line: Life is like a carousel ride. It seems as apt now as it did then. We chase ourselves in endless circles traveling up and down. Our lives repeat. We never reach escape velocity and come around to the place we were just a moment ago again and again and again.

It’s not just the emotions she owns but the memories themselves, the acts, the songs. There is no dancing on rooftops left in my life. It was the kind of gift you can only give one person, once. To do it again would make the memory cheap. And I can’t do that to her. Even if she never knew. I couldn’t do it to myself. I would know. I couldn’t do it to a future lover, because it wouldn’t mean as much to me and her delight would just be a lie to me. The rooftop was her dream. You can’t give another person’s dream away, especially if it came true.

It is hard on days like today to remember that I moved on. That we haven’t spoken in a couple years. When you’re lucky enough to find someone to hold and close your eyes to the world with, you don’t forget. You may not remember to remember, but she is never far from the surface, never too far away. It only takes a catalyst like a few simple but profound sentences from a novel to turn winter to summer, to melt the snow that has piled on the mountains of times you spent together and things you shared. Suddenly it all melts, all it once and your road washes out and your day is washed away in a deluge of run-off pouring down the path of least resistance , following gravity right back to her.

I will dry, and climb again, like a certain little spider in a certain child’s song. And I won’t regret, and I can’t, because I was lucky enough. Even if it was for a minute, or a day.

Words enough, goodnight.

-morg4n