forever

Some people leave you forever and you don't even notice they're gone. Some give forever as a gift; a promise, and you hold it like an ever-full rice-bowl until one day it is empty. Some shove forever down your throat like a weapon, leave you bleeding and retching, and then they stand smiling at your door again, arms stretched like ever. Some people hang up the phone, turn away, wave nonchalantly or blow a kiss and you never cherish it at all, until later you realize that was goodbye forever. Some people are gone forever and you can't see it. There always seems to be another door that they are not behind; another ringing phone without their voice on the other end; another day gone without them. Some people commit to forever, hit roadblock after roadblock after roadblock, find empty rice-bowls and closed doors, but they keep working to surmount the difficulties, to mend the seams, and to carry the pieces forward into forever. Some people never commit to anything; never demand anything, but when you look back at your life they have always been there, and you depend on that. Forever. Even when their voices are memories.

There are so many ways to forever, and we are always just stumbling along, never knowing where the end is, because there is none. And the people we find still holding our hearts in each moment are a piece of forever.

This is one of the times in the year we like to sit back and think about what has gone by. A year ago I could never have predicted the way this year would unfold; not even a month ago. So this year I look forward with no intention to control things, nor to predict an outcome. I just hope to ride the waves with some kind of grace, or at least to keep afloat. I hope to notice and appreciate those beautiful things I may have missed before, and I hope to leave behind seeds of love - the quietly forever kind - wherever this year brings me.