Expiration Dates

by Rebecca Serle

Being single is like playing the lottery. Most of the time all you’re left with from that trip to the convenience store is a bag of chips and a six-pack. But then there’s always the chance. There’s always the chance, however slim, that with one piece of paper you could win it all.

“To meet the right person, to be with someone I want to see in the morning and naked. To not be afraid to have a bad day around them. To be happy, I guess.”

I am familiar with this dance, the space between being open and being a liability. The fine art of dating.

The thing no one ever wants to say about dating is this: It’s hard to be real, sure. It’s harder to let someone else be.

It’s hard to hold on to people the older we get. Life looks different for everyone, and you have to keep choosing one another. You have to make a conscious effort to say, over and over again, “You.” Not everyone makes that choice. Not everyone can.

The truth is hard. It’s complicated. It does not always follow a simple structure. It is not always convenient. That’s why sometimes we do our best to leave it out of the story for as long as possible. We choose to let it linger in the corners, we don’t spotlight it. But eventually, it catches up to us. Of course it does. You can run but you can’t hide.

“The problem with love is that it’s not enough,” she says. And then she looks up at me. Her eyes are still soft. “But it’s also nearly impossible to let go of once you’ve found it.”

We have to be cracked open sometimes. We have to be cracked open sometimes to let anything good in. What I see now, emerging in the mirror, is this one, simple truth: learning to be broken is learning to be whole.

“But the thing is, Daphne. No one’s time is promised. Not yours. Not Mom’s. Not mine. Not Jake’s. It’s just the way it is. We are all dying. Every day. And at some point it becomes a choice. Which one are you going to do today? Are you living or are you dying?”

But being surprised by life isn’t losing, it’s living. It’s messy and uncomfortable and complicated and beautiful. It’s life, all of it. The only way to get it wrong is to refuse to play.

We are powerful because we affect each other’s stories, all of us. We are here to impact each other, to knock into each other, to throw each other off-balance, sometimes even off track.