Forever, Interrupted

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Every morning when I wake up I forget for a fraction of a second that you are gone and I reach for you. All I ever find is the cold side of the bed. My eyes settle on the picture of us in Paris, on the bedside table, and I am overjoyed that even though the time was brief I loved you and you loved me.

I am all talk right now. Life can’t go on. That’s just a thing people say to other people because they heard it on daytime TV. It doesn’t exist for me. It never will. There will be no moving on. But people not living in the valley of a tragedy don’t like to hear this. They like to hear you “buck up.” They want to say to your friends, to your co-workers, to the people you used to ride elevators with, that you’re “handling it well.” That you’re a “trooper.” The more crass of them want to say you’re a “tough bitch” or a “hard as nails motherfucker.” I’m not, but let them think it. It’s easier on all of us.

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.

Things happen in your life that you can’t possibly imagine. But time goes on and time changes you and the times change and the next thing you know, you’re smack in the middle of a life you never saw coming.”

I’m just trying to tell you that your life will be very long with zigzags you can’t imagine. You won’t realize just how young you are until you aren’t that young anymore.

That is what true love is. True love is saying to someone “Forget about us. We will be okay,” when it might not even be true, when the last thing you want is to be forgotten.

You are everything I have ever wanted in another person. You are my best friend, my lover, my partner. And I promise that I will spend the rest of my life taking care of you, the way you deserve to be taken care of. My whole life I was never looking for something bigger than myself, and then I met you and I want to dedicate every day of my life to you. You are it for me. You are why I am here. Without you, I am nothing. So thank you, Elsie, for being who you are, and for spending your life with me.”

No matter how strong you are, no matter how smart you are or tough you can be, the world will find a way to break you. And when it does, the only thing you can do is hold on.