The Sweetness of Forgetting

by Kristin Harmel

Life changes you, even if you don’t realize it while it’s happening, and it turns out you can’t take back the years that have passed by.

Rose gazed out the window, searching, as she always did, for the first star on the horizon. She knew it would appear, as twinkling and brilliant as an eternal flame, just after the setting sun painted the sky in ribbons of fire and light. When she was a girl, they’d called this twilight l’heure bleue, the blue hour, the time when the earth was neither completely light nor completely dark. Rose had always found comfort in this middle ground.

‘As long as there are stars in the sky, I will love you.’

It was impossible to hold back the tide any longer. In fact, Rose was no longer sure she wanted to. Being a one-woman dam against a surging flood was exhausting.

It brought her comfort to know that while everything else in the world could change, the ending to God’s light show remained eternally the same.

Now I’m realizing that by always choosing the safe road, the one that was expected of me, I might have given up more than I ever understood. Had I left behind the person I was supposed to be too? Had I lost my real self somewhere along that road of doing everything right? I wonder whether there’s still time to figure things out and start playing by my own rules. Can I salvage the life I’m meant to have?

I know now that the prince is real, and that the people who love you the most can save you, and that fate might have a bigger plan for all of us than we understand. I know now that fairy tales can come true after all, if only you have the courage to keep believing.

“Life gets complicated. Circumstance tears us apart. Decisions guide our fate. But your heart will always show you true north.

My deepest wish for you is a fate different from mine. I wish that you learn to open your heart. I kept mine closed for all these years, because I was frightened, and that was a mistake. Life is a series of chances, and you have to have the courage to seize them, before the years pass you by and leave you with nothing but regrets.