The Light We Lost

by Jill Santopolo

There’s something about death that makes people want to live. We wanted to live that day, and I don’t blame us for it. Not anymore.

Sometimes we make decisions that seem right at the time, but later, looking back, were clearly a mistake. Some decisions are right even in hindsight.

Love does that. It makes you feel infinite and invincible, like the whole world is open to you, anything is achievable, and each day will be filled with wonder.

As much as I hated you just then, I still wanted to walk across the studio and slide in next to you on the couch, to feel the solidity of your body next to mine. You were my comfort and my pain all at once.

Because we only reveal our true selves to the people we care about most.

There are people we come across during our lives who, after they drift out of our worlds, drift out for good. Even if we see them again, it’s a quick, meaningless hi and how are you? There are other people, though, with whom things pick up right where the relationship left off, whenever we run into them. The level of comfort—it feels like no time has passed.

“She said that she thinks of every romance she’s in as if it’s a type of fire. That some relationships feel like a wildfire—they’re powerful and compelling and majestic and dangerous and have the capability to burn you before you even realize you’ve been consumed. And that some relationships feel like a hearth fire—they’re solid and stable and cozy and nourishing. She had other examples—a bonfire relationship, a sparkler—that one was for a one-night stand, I think—but the wildfire and the hearth fire are the two that I remember most.”

Oh, I think that’s what the bonfire was—where the relationship is always on the verge of being all-consuming but doesn’t quite go that far.

How happy you are factored in with whether losing that happiness is worth potentially finding more of it with someone else.

“I think,” I said, choosing my words delicately, “that making yourself available means putting the relationship you’re in first. Not necessarily always, but often. It means making the decision that’s best for the two of you, as a unit, even if it means compromising a little individually. It means sharing everything.

Ordinary days sometimes turn into extraordinary days when you least expect them to.

The way people interpret a situation often says more about them than it does about the situation.

We see everything through the filter of our own desires and regrets, hopes and fears.