la vie est belle

You can’t force love, I realized. It’s there or it isn’t. If it’s not there, you’ve got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you’ve got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.

Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us.

As long as we can see the same sky, breathe the same air, step on the same planet, then you and I are not impossible.

I wonder what it’s like being 28 and waking up knowing you’re going to ask her to marry you tonight. I wonder what it’s like being 30 and waking up to her gone for the week on a work trip and having the entire bed to yourself for the first time in ages so you starfish the fuck out of it, but somehow drift over to their side because you already miss them. I wonder what it’s like being 42 and waking up for work content that the same pair of tired eyes as yesterday, and the day before that, and for the past 13 years, still look at you like you have the ability to reverse time and stop the sun from rising any higher, then you could both stay in bed. You blink, smile, and kiss her forehead softly as a reply, silently acknowledging your shared distaste for mornings, but not apologizing for wanting to wake up to those eyes again tomorrow. I wonder what it’s like being 49 and waking up beside someone who still makes you nervous when they look at you that close up in the morning, especially now that you’re nearing 50 and fully aware of the wrinkles you have and the ones on the way. I wonder what it’s like being 61 and waking up at 2pm because you were too sore and sickly to get out of bed that morning, but when you hear her key in the door after coming back from the store with some medicine, your favourite soup and a kiss, it still makes your heart beat fast enough to propel you off the bed and into her healing arms. I wonder what it’s like being 87 and waking up next to an undisturbed pillow and an unwrinkled half of a quilt because she died 2 years ago, peacefully in her sleep. It was just her time to go. I wonder what it’s like to live life in that much love. And when you do, I wonder what it’s like to lose it to something as trivial as your body passing through time. It’s heartbreaking that the body can’t last as long as the love between two people. But it’s also kind of beautiful that love transcends physical nature. All we can do is experience it while it’s here and while it lasts.