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To her I’m just another anonymous face, another applicant, another someone who wants something from America.
It’s still hard for me to believe that my future is going to be different from the one I’d planned.
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There’s a pure kind of joy in the certainty of belief.
He was going to get the American Dream that even Americans dream about.
But something about Natasha makes me think my life could be extraordinary.
We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.”
It’s hard trying to hold on to a place that doesn’t want you.
America’s not really a melting pot. It’s more like one of those divided metal plates with separate sections for starch, meat, and veggies.
We walk down the hair dye aisle. All the boxes feature broadly smiling women with the most perfectly colored and styled hair. It’s not hair dye being sold in these bottles, it’s happiness.
“Are we in a tragedy?” he asks, smiling broadly now. “Of course. Isn’t that what life is? We all die at the end.”
Here’s another thing that’s also true: I am my father’s greatest regret. How do I know? He said so himself.
The thing about falling is you don’t have any control on your way down.
The wind picks up again. It stirs her hair a little. I can picture it with pink tips so clearly. I would’ve liked to see it.
Daniel lives in the nebulous space in between. Maybe he wasn’t meant to meet Natasha today. Maybe it was random chance after all. But. Once they met, the rest of it, the love between them, was inevitable.
Compared to that, what is falling in love? A series of small coincidences that we say means everything because we want to believe that our tiny lives matter on a galactic scale. But falling in love doesn’t even begin to compare to the formation of the universe. It’s not even close.
But the smile on my face needs to be measured in miles instead of inches.
“I think all the good parts of us are connected on some level. The part that shares the last double chocolate chip cookie or donates to charity or gives a dollar to a street musician or becomes a candy striper or cries at Apple commercials or says I love you or I forgive you. I think that’s God. God is the connection of the very best parts of us.”
“And then there’s you. I didn’t know you this morning, and now I don’t really remember not knowing you.
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The trouble with getting your hopes too far up is: it’s a long way down.
Does he really need me to tell him that all the seconds matter? That our own universe exploded into existence in the space of a breath?
All day I’ve been thinking that we were meant to be. That all the people and places, all the coincidences were pushing us to be together forever. But maybe that’s not true. What if this thing between us was only meant to last the day? What if we are each other’s in-between people, a way station on the road to someplace else? What if we are just a digression in someone else’s history?
I know for sure that I will always compare every city skyline to New York’s. Just as I will always compare every boy to Daniel.
“I can see that this is important to you, and I really want to give you a good reason. But the truth is, I don’t care why. Maybe I’m naïve, but I do not give a single shit about anyone’s opinion of us. I do not care if we’re a novelty to them. I do not care about the politics of it. I don’t care if your parents approve, and I really, truly don’t care if mine do. What I care about is you, and I’m sure that love is enough to overcome all the bullshit. And it is bullshit. All the hand-wringing. All the talk about cultures clashing or preserving cultures and what will happen to the kids. All of it
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I never before thought that not caring could be a revolutionary act.
Our history is too compressed. We’re trying to fit a lifetime into a day.
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The worst part of overhearing that conversation between him and my mom was that it spoiled all the good memories I had of him. Did he regret my existence when we were watching cricket matches together? What about when he was holding me tight at the airport when we were all finally reunited? What about the day I was born?
He makes a sound, and now I know what a lifetime of pain sounds like. People make mistakes all the time. Small ones, like you get in the wrong checkout line. The one with the lady with a hundred coupons and a checkbook. Sometimes you make medium-sized ones. You go to medical school instead of pursuing your passion. Sometimes you make big ones. You give up.
That meant to be doesn’t have to mean forever.
They kiss, and kiss again. When they do finally pull apart, it’s with a new knowledge. They have a sense that the length of a day is mutable, and you can never see the end from the beginning. They have a sense that love changes all things all the time. That’s what love is for.
