Memento mori

dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.*
-Horace, Odes 1.11

It's a little after 8 on Sunday night and there are a lot of things I "should" be doing.

I "should" be hauling my clothes down to the laundromat. I "should" be cleaning my kitchen, or tidying up my living room. I "should" be scrubbing the ceiling in my bathroom so I can paint it (finally). I "should" be getting a head start on the absolute mountain of work that I'm facing come tomorrow morning.

Instead, I spent the afternoon reading and now I'm sitting in my un-tidied living room, thinking about the evanescent nature of life.

Our lives are so achingly short, and they can turn in an instant.

Though I haven't said much about it in this public forum, I have been reminded more than once in the last year that tomorrow is promised to no one.

• In June, I buried my friend Curtis.
• In September, Apollo's betrayal ended ten years of love and friendship in less than twenty minutes.
• In November, my father was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. Although his doctor caught it very early and prostate cancer responds extremely well to treatment, he's still my father and cancer is a scary thing.
• In March, a member of my Santa Barbara family found a growth in his lung that, for several terrifying days, appeared to be extremely aggressive lung cancer. (Fortunately it turned out to be a rare but treatable infection instead)
• This month, a dear friend's wife had a miscarriage and Natara lost her best friend to a sudden heart attack.
• Next month, Rauri deploys to Baghdad.

Those are just the things that have happened to me personally, nevermind the ongoing tragedy of lives being lost in this quagmire of a war, or the casualties of a marginalized madman with a gun.

How many times must the Universe show us in brutal detail that life is so fragile, so tenuous? Why do we continue to cling to things that are so small, so petty, so completely inconsequential?

The old wisdom of What would you do if you won a million dollars? Why aren't you doing it right now? holds true. There is no perfect time, perfect place, or perfect set of circumstances. We will never be as ready as we think we need to be and there is no reason to waste time waiting. The Universe has reminded me of these things time and time again during the past year.

So perhaps you all will understand why, when The Fireman called me to tell me that he loves me, that he has always loved me, it ended up being the simplest thing in the world to let myself fall.

I have never felt my heart open the way it did when he said:

I have wanted you since the day that I saw you sitting under that tree. I couldn't say anything because I was with **** . . . But I'm single now, and so are you, and I needed to tell you. For years, I've needed to tell you. I wish I could have kissed you that first day and I've wanted to kiss you every day that I've seen you since.

I fought against it at first. I tried to be logical and cautious, to live within the walls I've built out of past hurts, but he & I were talking one night last week and suddenly I just felt my resistance break. It was palpable, as though I'd been bound with rope and suddenly cut free, and I drew what felt like the first truly deep breath I'd ever taken.

It was, without a doubt, the strangest and most wonderful experience of my life.

Memento mori my friends; remember that you are mortal. Whatever you've been meaning to do, or to say, do it now. You may not have the opportunity tomorrow.

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*Even as we speak, envious time runs away from us: seize the day, for you can believe very little about the future.

Comments

[The Fireman]

From the moment I saw you we had a connection. You are grace, you are beauty, you are strength, you are my love.

make no mistake, everyday is brighter because you love me.

everyday is hope because I LOVE YOU!

[Kitchen Witch]

YEAH!!!!!!!!! I can't wait to meet him! :)

btw, I hate to be the one to point out the obvious...but you may still very well be in a committed relationship and "have kids" (in a manner of speaking) by the time you're 30 afterall. You just didn't do it the way the women in your family before you did...but why start that habit, now, right?