Forever, Interrupted

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

She was a nice reprieve from my own personality. A personality for whom everything went as planned and nothing ever happened.

As I catch a glimpse of myself in her mirror one last time, dressed for a meeting with large glasses on my face, I feel like Jackie Kennedy. Maybe there’s a part of every woman that wants to be Jackie Kennedy, but they mean First Lady Jackie Kennedy or Jackie Kennedy Onassis. No one wants to relate to her like this.

I like it the way I like doctors’ appointments. They serve a purpose but they aren’t much fun.”

When you love someone so much that you’ve stuck around through all the interesting things that have happened to them and you have nothing left to say, when you know the course of their day before they even tell you, when you lie next to them and hold their hand even though they haven’t said one interesting thing in days, that’s a love I want. It’s the love I was on target for.

Just because it was short, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It was just short. That’s all.

I realize that I am in a sea of gravestones. I am surrounded by other people’s loss. It has never been so clear to me that I am not alone in this. People die every day and other people move on. If everyone that loved all of these people has picked themselves up and moved on, I can do it too. I will one day wake up and see the sun shining and think, What a nice day.