I have spent a lot of today thinking about moments. Life is full of them, intricately sewn together. Jagged jigsaw pieces with some fitting better than others, some small, some large and some which have tried to be scratched out so many times that their fragile seams ache with the hope of being dropped and forgotten.
I have spent a lot of today crying. I wish I could say my tears have caressed me in the way they sometimes soothe my soft heart. But, alas, today I settled for ferocious rivers.
There is so much in a moment, but I think especially in last moments. The last moments I shared with my father I will cherish until I die. They way he tilted his head into my lips as I kissed him goodbye, three months before my 18th birthday. The last moment of love between me and my ex, as he touched his hands to my cheeks and sent flames down my senses, enveloping me in a cacophany of security – how I used to wish the crescendo did not end so abruptly.
The last moment you share with someone you loved as they tell you ‘I have not missed you’. I love you. But I love you! The patient wait for an unspoken reply.
It is the harshest of moments that we hold most dearly, when people are ripped away from us in death, distance, choices or the end of love.
And we shouldn’t. Why do we cling to the last moments of our journeys with others, and not the millions of defining moments previous to the end?
Here’s to the firsts. The first kisses, the first A grade, the first secret, the first jump, the first promotion, the first ‘I love you’. Fuck the last. Fuck the moments rested on goodbye. It’s over. I’m leaving you. I’m moving away. I’ve accepted the job. This isn’t going to work.
I will hold the firsts with ferocity. I will cherish the first time I saw you more than the last. I will rip the first mention of my name on your lips from the passage of time and breathe it every time I remember you. I will not live on the lasts. I will live carrying the firsts.
Living Powerfully 