Here I Am

by Jonathan Safran Foer

The difference between conceding and accepting is depression.

“A person gets drunk at a party, and hits and kills a kid on the way home. Another person gets equally drunk, and makes it home safely. Why does the first one go to jail for the rest of his life, while the second gets to wake up the next morning as if nothing happened?” “Because he killed a kid.” “But in terms of what they did wrong, they are equally guilty.” “But the second one didn’t kill a kid.” “Not because he was innocent, but because he was lucky.” “But still, the first one killed a kid.” “But when we think about guilt, shouldn’t we think about actions and intentions, in addition to outcomes?”

‘While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.’”

So it had something to do with the sinner, and something with the judge, and the fear of not being forgiven, and the relief of being loved again.

All happy mornings resemble one another, as do all unhappy mornings, and that’s at the bottom of what makes them so deeply unhappy: the feeling that this unhappiness has happened before, that efforts to avoid it will at best reinforce it, and probably even exacerbate it, that the universe is, for whatever inconceivable, unnecessary, and unjust reason, conspiring against the innocent sequence of clothes, breakfast, teeth and egregious cowlicks, backpacks, shoes, jackets, goodbye.

Touch had always saved them in the past. No matter the anger or hurt, no matter the depth of the aloneness, a touch, even a light and passing touch, reminded them of their long togetherness.

At times, it was almost impossible to cross the distance between their bodies, to reach out. At times, it was impossible. Each knew the feeling so well, in the silence of a darkened bedroom, looking at the same ceiling: If I could open my fingers, my heart’s fingers could open. But I can’t. I want to reach across the distance, and I want to be reached. But I can’t.

“Nothing goes away. Not on its own. You deal with it, or it deals with you.”