These Tangled Vines

by Julianne MacLean

“Yes, and I have been feeling immensely grateful. More than that. I feel different. Like it changed me somehow. Now I can’t seem to take my eyes off the moon at night or the way the mist rolls between the hills in the early hours of the morning. Just looking at the world makes me feel euphoric. I’ve never felt such joy before. I can’t begin to explain it.”

because I already feel in awe of the world most of the time, and I don’t want to leave it anytime soon. But who knows what I have yet to learn? Socrates believed that true knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. So I guess I’m still just a student of life. Always will be.”

I wish we could be together to comfort each other, but maybe that’s not what we deserve. Maybe the fates have decided that we stole a lifetime of happiness that one summer. We used it all up and there is no more left for us.

Seeing the total unqualified despair in his eyes, I forced myself to reach out and take hold of his hand, because I didn’t want to become like him—a person with a soul that couldn’t forgive. A person with a heart that couldn’t trust in love or have faith in a loved one’s loyalty. I wanted to see the best in him. I needed to believe that he cared for me and that he could put my happiness, for once, above his own.

What good could come from grappling forever with “could have beens”? Every life was full of “could have beens.” The best we could do was make the most of what was and what had been.