The Other Side of Now

by Paige Harbison

And honestly, even if I’m losing my mind, at least there’s a dog here.

When you’re “perfect,” you never truly are. You don’t cross a finish line of hotness. It’s a constant battle of maintenance that involves constant failure, and the goalposts are perpetually moving.

I can’t believe I had forgotten about that so completely. How had my brain been powerful enough to hide that from me? I guess I hadn’t wanted to remember. It was too hard.

Fantasizing about who I might be has always been more interesting than fantasizing about who I might be with.

We still get mad at the dog for tracking mud through the house even though one day, we would give anything to have her muddy paws back on our white carpet.

We still roll our eyes at our parents’ needy voicemails even though one day, those recorded moments will be all we have left.

I can’t believe how much I’ve forgotten. It’s startling. Even stranger is how it’s still in there, somewhere.

She’s a good person who deserves carbs and sugar and whatever else makes her happy.

Sometimes I feel like my memories are less like a library filled with detailed volumes of moments lived, and instead, every moment is an atom in the air around me. The past is what I breathe, it’s what keeps me alive.