This Moment

I never waved. I never told him goodbye.

Life is not made up of seconds, minutes and hours. It is not even made up of days, weeks, or years.

Life is a series of moments, sewn together with threads of the monotony of everyday life. Sometimes, people forget that the pieces between the moments are not what we live for - we live for the moments. Moments are what we strive for, work to make. Without them, we are lost.

I fear I have become lost.

The laughter in me faded long ago. Even familial expectations for my smile had become scant. I stayed in a corner and became forgotten, forever dooming myself to playing solitaire, staring numbly at the cards, alone.

“Have you heard about the new corduroy pillows? They’re making headlines!”

The radio blared in the kitchen with the inane laughter at the imagined brilliancy of the joke. My father was making toast, not noticing me.

Where did this hopelessness come from? I make my way outside, not willing to vocalize my thoughts, drop them into the silence for judgment. The air is cool, a sign of summer edging its way back into the world. Summer was once my favorite season. I don’t know anymore.

The grass tickles my bare feet as I approach the tree - tall and looming, casting ominous shadows over the bright green expanse of the yard of my parents’ home. It hasn’t been my home for a long time. I try not to think as I climb it, letting air escape between my clenched teeth as the bark bites into my skin. Crouching among the branches, I look toward the sun, raising my hand to save my eyes from the brightness.

I want the horizon to look like it did once before - covered in water, sparkling in the sun, as I strain to see the way the edges of the earth dipped away, just as I was now. If it looked that way, I’d be with him. I’d be home.

Tears prick at my eyes, blur my vision, and I blame it on the sun. But I know the real reason. And he’s not here.

“Promise you won’t give up, Love. Giving up is too easy…” He’d said that to me, the night before he left.

It was only a month after I received word of his disappearance that I did give up. Maybe it was shame that made me run home, or fear of the knowledge that the string that held those beautiful moments together was gone.

I was a coward, and I knew it. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks. I squeezed my eyes shut trying to recall his voice just once.

“Love.”

There it was. The tone, that blissful joy of seeing me not hidden as well as he’d like to imagine. It was vivid, accompanied by a deep rumble in his chest as he spoke. I tried to draw out the memory, but it was gone too quick.

“Love.” There it was again. But this was not a memory I had called up. I frowned, peeking my eyes open.

Brown eyes looked at me with a broad smile in a tired, unshaven face.

I reached out to touch him, just to be sure he was really, truly there, I jumped at the contact, and then felt myself slowly deteriorate into tears. He was here…really here.

Life is not made up of seconds, minutes and hours. It is not even made up of days, weeks, or years.

Life is a series of moments. This is one of them.


Author's Note: This is not a recent writing - it was written January of 2011. I was missing Florida and searching for a place, which translated into this desperate need illustrated here. I'm not proud of the writing as a whole, but the gems of sentences in there make it a worthwhile read, I believe. :)