The Other Side of Now

by Paige Harbison

What if all our souls know things? What if that’s what instinct is? What if that really is the explanation for gut feelings, intuition, déjà vu, kismet, and everything else? What if it’s our souls, remembering or knowing the truths of all our other lives?

But that’s what grief is, isn’t it? Expectation and resolution slashed, leaving unfinished conversations behind.

What I need is to be around people I care about. To let people love me. To have small moments, knowing that they’re the biggest ones, and not ignore them because I’m too busy looking way off in the distance, either future or past, for some imagined thing.

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.

I don’t try to protect the memory of tonight from tragedy by pretending it isn’t lovely, and I don’t cherish it so hard that I smother out its spark. I don’t question the magic or panic that what I love is slipping through my fingers, or that every good thing will one day be cast pale against the darkness of future catastrophe. Instead, I have a good night. I get kissed in the snow. I eat chocolate in bed. I make plans for tomorrow.