01.
Most things in life that you wish could last forever probably won’t, and deep down, you know it’s for the best. As much as we want to have everything and everyone all at the same time, in all of the places, in the end we have to pick what’s most essential for us at the very core — the ones that are at the very least functional, and most gloriously for the lucky ones, give us a reason to keep going. Oftentimes, although not always, they’re the ones that do not get enough credit: those who have stood the test of time.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that anything that feels too good — anything that materialized in an instant, dropped into your lap with little to no effort, handed to you on a silver platter — can falter away rather quickly before it has the chance to evolve into a permanent fixture in your life. But even when it does — falter away, that is — you simply have fewer reasons to cling to it too tightly, given that you didn’t feel like you earned it in the first place. You didn’t invest too much of yourself, sacrifice a lot, or put in so much work that you feel you should fight for it to stay. It feels like a gift that someone lends you for a limited amount of time before taking it back once your time is up. It feels like watching a flower float down the river along with the stream. You watch it go quietly, peacefully, with a feeling of somberness overriding what little remorse that is not in any way necessarily personal — it just simply needs to pass through you. Much like the flower. Only this time, you’re the river.
This is not to say that you cannot reminisce fondly on the experience, because I know you took immense care of whoever made a brief stop in your life. This is not to say that your time together didn’t mean anything, or that you didn’t make a remarkable impact on each other. It’s simply about coming to terms with the truth of life — I’m not even going to call it harsh, it’s just the truth. Not everyone gets to stay; not everyone wants to stay; not everyone is asked to stay, and none of it should always be a bad thing. We all carve out a space where we let our visitors rest and breathe, one at a time, and wish them well on their next journey when they’re ready to go. And as we wait for the next visitor to arrive, we sit with a newfound appreciation of those who have permanent residency in our lives. Our heart is an established household of its own, with enough space for weary travelers to come and go.
