Let's say it's not about me

I don't want to talk about me. Or my problems, or my possibilities. Let's just talk about love in the universal sense, the fact that we all want love, need love, feel devastated when we lose love, feel euphoric when we discover love or what could become love. Let's talk about it in the universal sense. 

Let's talk about two people who loved each other for many, many years, perhaps one more dearly than the other--who knows, who can say anymore, it's all a confusing jumble now. He called her Sweetheart for all those years, they shared intimacies and I love yous, and now she's sitting several feet away from him and she's a complete stranger, and it's a cold, unfathomable feeling of emptiness and confusion and he just wants to go somewhere and cry, let it out in the absence of anyone else looking at him and judging him.

Let's talk about what it feels like to meet someone, someone who makes him feel like he's not alone, not going to die alone, someone kind and funny and smart, with needs and wants and hopes and fears of her own--her own unfinished life story. How amazing it is to connect and gaze and smile and laugh. And wonder, what if?

Life is long, if we're lucky, and strange and wonderful and occasionally devastating. I don't know what the future holds. I don't have a clear plan anymore. I know that I will die someday, but what happens between now and then is much murkier than it once was. It's like the hours after a hurricane, when everything is lost, and suddenly someone reaches out a hand and grabs yours, and either you're both found or you're both lost, but either way you realize how important it is to be kind to each other, because everything will be different from here on out.