Of Lovers

I looked up at the clouds today and was jealous of their simple existence, caught in a cycle of condensation and evaporation, designed for no higher purpose. 

I caught her staring at me this morning, and I asked her why she was doing so. Her response was “I never know if it’ll be the last time I see you so I want to remember what you look like.” Some equally memorable statements followed this one because I asked a follow up question but they are, at this point, inconsequential. Being me though I soon descended into a contemplative state. 

In some ways love is like life. This love is like this life. It is unpredictable. If you wake up in the morning you’re more fortunate than the hundreds of thousands or millions who won’t make it through the night. But very few ever see it that way, unless they’re actively dying (not passively, like the rest of us). And so it is, as with life, this love is sometimes taken for granted; sometimes by her, sometimes by me, and sometimes we’re both complacent. However I do not linger in the land of the ungrateful because I know, and I’ve been told, that my place in this love most probably isn’t permanent. Any moment she could choose to be done with me. She could decide that I’m not and I never will be worth it. And I will have to live with it, or try to. But as with life I can’t live a future that isn’t here yet or that may not come to pass – I can only appreciate this moment, this today. So in light of that I will love her today: Because today is all I really have, and I will love her to the best of my ability today. I will be present in this day and its moments inasmuch as she will let me. And if we should be so fortunate as to wake up in the morning alive and in control of our minds & bodies, I will love her. While I live and breathe I will love her.