Hope dies last

We spoke of reality.

About how we try to escape it by avoiding that person, that thing that confronts us with our own mortality. About not wanting but still keeping our distance from a person whose only wrong was to slide their hand across a wall in a darkened room and switch on a light for us to see.

We spoke of death.

How knowing the pain of loss can be a little bit easier than living with the constant fear of loss. How death can strip away the banality of everyday and put it all into perspective.

So, we spoke of life.

Of surpassing our own self. Our words bumped into each other before we realized we were saying the same thing. “Not to be the best, not to do it all”. But, to push. A small push a day.  We pushed past the plan of going home, pouring legs into sweatpants and numbingly flicking through channels. Rather, we perched on iron cast bar stools and we spoke. We actually spoke.

We spoke of being different.

That in order to just be she needed to be with people. That in order to for me to be I needed to be alone. That when I watch a movie, or read a book, or hear a song, it becomes a part of me “It becomes your property.” She needs to be away from home–in a gallery or the cinema or standing on beer soaked floors rocking to a live band–to feel that same type of ownership; of worthwhile accomplishment.

We spoke of ‘this is how it all starts’.

That often we are not aware that the beginning has begun until we are somewhere in the middle. Because we are too afraid to admit hope–that this time it could be different–because the mere presence of hope on the peripheral edge of our mind reminds us that we still have a little fight left over. A little more to give. Strength for one small push. But,we are afraid to admit hope because sometimes we are just too tired to fight.

We spoke of blowing up, of arguments, of reaching your limit.

That even in the most compatible of romantic relationships massive arguments with tears and slamming doors can–and will–occur. But after that, after everything that had been suppressed came out in heaving relief “I held him so tightly as if I never wanted to let go.”  And she –they–were all the better for it.

So I spoke of the unhappiness I had stifled all this time. Unhappiness that I had misattributed to men or the lack thereof. I spoke of my own rock bottom. Of the argument I had with myself.  But after that, after everything I had suppressed came out in heaving relief “I finally knew what I needed to do, what I needed to change.”

And I am all the better for it.