Epilogue

Just a few weeks ago I was going to write a post about how I was considerably happier than I was this same time last year. A lot of good things happened to me, and a lot of good people happened to me. I wrote a list at the beginning of last year where I specified some big-picture things I wanted to work towards, and I hit just about every one of them.

But sometimes hurt ambushes you. When there’s so much light in your life, it’s hard to see the night coming and the shadows growing darker. Then one day it’s pitch black. You know it will be day again, it’s an eventuality, but the night is cold and unforgiving.

And in that darkness, your thoughts whisper on the wind, if all of it was for nothing. The work, the effort. That you’re worthless since you couldn’t bend reality to be what it needed to be, that you couldn’t be what you needed to be. That all the love in your heart was poured into that void that knows no end. That everyone leaves in the end.

But I hope that even in the darkest of nights, when the whispers turn into tempests, I can hold onto the memory of the man I was.

What he felt in that moment was a love he had never known, and worth every ounce of his being. He feels fulfilled. He walks with her in the afternoon from a picnic that was too far of a walk, lugging a cooler that was far too heavy, enjoying food, laughter and each other. He holds her hand as the sun sets and kisses her softly. Fireflies in the trees as they walk to his car, a train horn echoing in the valley of time.

He is happy, truly happy. He is overwhelmed with his love for her. He lives frozen in time, dreaming of futures that can never be. He doesn’t need to know about the heartbreak or even how the story ends. His story has no end. A me I can never meet again.

So. Was it worth it?

Yes. I may not feel it or even believe it, but I know it to be true. It was worth it because he still lives in that sliver of time with her. Feeling loved for the first time.