Savor It

by Tarah DeWitt

I would love to find a person of my own, but I refuse to let not having a partner preclude me from enjoying my life. It’d just be nice to share it with someone who appreciates and loves me as is.

That was me alerting them that I was being forced to witness their passion against my will.”

like this great effort for something so fleeting,

My first offer the night we met might’ve been made out of being polite, but I mean this one with my whole chest.”

But it feels good to speak plainly for once. To worry a little less about making my feelings smaller to spare someone else the discomfort.

My thoughts and emotions resemble shattered glass lately. Pieces of them everywhere, sharp, some fragments so tiny and hidden I’ll never find them until I unavoidably slice myself on them later.

She makes a scandalized sound, but grins widely. “I’m giving it my best effort on my own, but I could probably stand to put in some more work.”

Her scowl simply untethers and fades away before she moves closer and gathers me into a hug. It’s misery. It’s agony. It’s bliss. Why is it that someone hugging you and holding you together can make you feel like you’re about to shatter?

You might get hurt again, but you’re gonna have so much fun before that. The important thing is to have courage and try again.

“I’ve been paying attention,” he says, shrugging like it’s the easiest thing in the world to him and like he hasn’t just given me a glimpse of what it would be like to truly have a partner in life.

I’ve spent so much of my life observing others, trying to learn the things I was missing, trying to make myself significant to them, but this man who has known me a month has made himself feel crucial to me.

I know you didn’t ask for this. I know we were supposed to accept the impermanence of this thing with you and me, and enjoy it in the meantime, but I just keep digging in, and now I’m drowning in you, Sage.”

Love is this. Love is breathing. A sweet, deep, aching relief. And it’s somehow even more disorienting.

I’m all too aware of how I sound. I know I’m in that spot early in love where everyone is in the beginning. You think that no one has ever felt as much or as strongly as you have before. You convince yourself it would be different with you, you could make the distance or the obstacles work.

Love me, love me, love me, I silently beg.

“It’s been a privilege to fall in love with you, Sage,” I tell her helplessly. Her expression shatters, and I kiss the tears from her cheeks before I have to wrench myself away.

I think it’s those words he used that shred at me the most, when he said it had been a privilege. Because it was, wasn’t it? Even feeling how I do now, I would do it all again for the privilege of loving him, of being loved by him. He didn’t fix me, and I didn’t heal him, but we loved each other wholly.

But you know what the bravest thing of all is? The most extraordinary thing?” I let out a relieving breath I feel to my very soul, because I also know the truth in what I’m saying. “To live by your own standards and no one else’s. To be happy by your own measure. You want your own flock of geese and a garden in Spunes? You want to make the same people you’ve known your entire life a little happier just by being in it? By doing the small things? Maybe it’s that you see your flowers in their stores and on their tables and in their hands, like Sage. Maybe you love passing knowledge on to your community through books, like Venus and Athena do. Maybe you sign up for all the things around town, like your mom always did.” Tears stream silently down my face, but I laugh.

“So. So what if you happen to meet the love of your life in some tiny town, and so what if you get stuck there? If it’s a life that’s filled with joy, by your standards? I can’t imagine a bigger, more fulfilling feeling.”