Find Me

by André Aciman

Some of us never jumped to the next level. We lost track of where we were headed and as a result stayed where we started.”

“Aren’t those the absolute worst scenarios: the things that might have happened but never did and might still happen though we’ve given up hoping they could.”

What else can we give those we’ve loved after we die than pictures of who we were when we were children and had yet to become the fathers they grew up to know. I want those who outlive me to extend my life, not just to remember it.”

“What these men have to offer I already have. And everything they want they don’t deserve, or I may not have in me to give. That’s the sad part.”

some people may be brokenhearted not because they’ve been hurt but because they’ve never found someone who mattered enough to hurt them.”

“That I’ve known you forever? Or that I don’t want to stop knowing you? The two go together.”

“Everything in my life was merely prologue until now, merely delay, merely pastime, merely waste of time until I came to know you.”

This is what I’ve always wanted. This and you.

“I’ve given you everything I have, and what I haven’t given means nothing, just nothing.

all the rest that happened was all leading up to you. And that’s good enough for me.”

And now ten years later, when I look at this wall under this old streetlamp, I am back with him and I swear to you, nothing has changed. In thirty, forty, fifty years I will feel no differently.

When I come to be here, I can be alone or with people, with you for instance, but I am always with him. If I stood for an hour staring at this wall, I’d be with him for an hour.

a part of me still does and always will, just as I know he still cares, which is why he too never writes. And knowing this is good enough for me.”

Michel said he used to have a dog, and they would go for long walks together, returning after dark. But since the dog had died he’d never wanted another. “He suffered a lot before dying, so I put him to sleep, but I won’t ever go through such a loss again.”

maybe then you can start noticing those tiny accidents that turn out to be miracles and that can redefine our lives and cast an incandescent luster over things that, in the great scheme of things, could easily be meaningless. But this is not meaningless.”

“Get back in,” he said. “I adore you, Elio, I adore you.”

You have given me days that justify the years I’ve been without him.”

Which is why I think all lives are condemned to remain unfinished. This is the deplorable truth we all live with. We reach the end and are by no means done with life, not by a long stretch!

What could be more gratifying than to know that it will always be up to someone else to complete and round off our life? Someone whom we loved and who loves us enough. In my case, I’d like to think it will be you, even if we’re no longer together. It’s like already knowing who will be the one who’ll shut my eyes. I want it to be you, Elio.”

“Most of our wants are imaginary anyway, aren’t they?”

some of our fondest desires end up meaning more to us unrealized than tested—don’t

“Some people leave us scuttled and damaged.” I thought awhile. “In my case I’m the one who did the scuttling, yet I’m the one who never recovered.”

Are you listening to his playing? I asked the one person who was absent, but never absent for me. I’m listening. And you know, you do know I’ve been floundering all these years. I know. But so have I. What lovely music you used to play for me. I wanted to. So you haven’t forgotten. Of course I haven’t.

We’re still the same, we haven’t drifted.