Expiration Dates

by Rebecca Serle

We convey too many important things in too few words these days.

“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 try not to look at myself too often naked. All the freckles and scars and birthmarks expanding and contracting. I read in a magazine one time that every woman should spend five minutes a day staring at her naked body. I’d rather hurl myself off a balcony.

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.

I do not believe sex is a marker of anything but what you assign to it. It does not measure the seriousness of a relationship, is not a barometer for the amount of feeling, and has little to do with love, at least in causation.

“Love is not only one thing, you know. Love is just the thing you need. For me it was an instant change of heart. For you it’s something else.”

I loved the way his brain worked. How he was always trying to play devil’s advocate—to see and appreciate sides that were not his own.

“Life is a catch-22,” Irina says. “That’s why God invented female friendship.”

I hadn’t been paying attention. And then, I hadn’t been ready.

I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness. Us, or the people who love us? It’s both, of course. We owe ourselves and each other. But in what order?

learning to be broken is learning to be whole.

He’s honestly perfect.” My father takes a sip of coffee and then looks back up at me. “He is,” he says. “But that doesn’t matter much if he isn’t perfect for you.”

“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.