Maybe Next Time

by Cesca Major

And it was “for us” so I was the one being unreasonable. But it was another task that took you away from what I really wanted you to do which was to BE HERE.

How low on your To Do List am I? Am I just another thing to check off, another thing to manage? I don’t want to be that—I want to be the thing, the person, who makes you hop out of bed in the morning, someone you get excited about.

Would it all unravel if I could sometimes just let the small stuff slide?

I didn’t have that kind of connection with anyone else—the ability to say so much with a look. To meet his eye in a room of people, or across a dining room table and know just what he was thinking.

I’d been missing so many of these small, precious moments, not just in this loop but before too, leaping ahead on the To Do List in my head rather than pausing to look around, to feel, to taste, to smell: to live.

And it is one of the things I love about you—that you are so generous, loving, kind—but sometimes I feel like we’re so far down your list, or we need to be hurting or sad for you to notice us.