"Untitled" by Melissa S.

 

Its such a simple concept. Such a simple truth. And yet it is not always easy to remember or care about when you are going through loss. When people leave your life, when you leave others, when a season in your life has passed and you are only realizing you need a sweater to keep warm now. Even when you feel you've lost yourself.

 

But the truth is we never really lose.

 

Everything in our lives is meant to leave, nothing is ever meant to truly stay.

 

Which sounds dire, but it makes you appreciate the temporary of the now.

 

That you get to experience all you are experiencing right now, that you get to be around the people you are around now. You get to be who you are in this moment. You have all the control you want right now. And you’ll never get this kind of control again.

And even if the now has gone, it leaves room for the next. And the next, and the next.

 

And even though we know to appreciate the now, we can't help but feel so tethered to what we've had, what we’ve lost, and what we might lose. You can't shake this bittersweet feeling knowing nothing lasts.

 

I never used to believe that I could feel extreme loss for anyone or anything really. I had heard of others and what they had lost in their lives, of movies that showed people sobbing over their past, and people in their life. When I was younger I remember anxiously anticipating the passing of someone I loved because if someone I knew had lost someone, I thought well at one point or another, I must be next to learn grief. I’d be so terrified of losing people in my life, or of losing how I feel. Afraid of the unknown, really because lucky for me, loss was the unknown. I’d hold onto things that were never mine and be afraid that one day I’d have to face that.

 

I never expected to lose in the ways I have. I didn't know loss could mean anything other than death. That you can experience loss even while all the ones you love still breathe. You can grieve over people that are still walking around without you. That people could be so close to you and yet feel so far. And that you could face loss, without ever physically losing.

 

I never knew I could feel the loss of people that were still sitting next to me. That I could feel so far away from the very person whose eyes I was still looking into. Who as I listened to, their voice sounded like distant echoes and memories I was preparing to replay in my head. That as I looked at them they’d no longer look like a person from my now, but a memory from my past. That they were not there anymore.

 

I was grieving people who hadn't even left my life yet. Those that did not leave because they had no choice, but precisely because that was their choice. And it stung.

And even as those in my life I held onto by a thin string snapped from it and went on, I’d grieve before it even happened. Never knowing I missed out on the now I had. The power I had to appreciate the temporary now.

 

I realized loss isn't what I expected. It wasn't accepting that loss happens. It was realizing sometimes change happens. Sometimes things leave, people leave, you feel lost. And sometimes it just has to happen.

But mostly I had to realize it’s not a bad thing when we lose because there was nothing to lose in this life. The most constant thing about the temporary now is that its always changing and I always have that control to keep it moving. Im always in the now. I can appreciate the now.

 

The things I have now, they aren't meant to last, but it makes me appreciate it more

 

Who I am now will change, things in my life, people in my life, everything will change and grow but they’ll always leave room for my next temporary now.

 

Right now I need to appreciate the now, because tomorrow I’ll have a brand new one and I’ll miss the today that I didn't live.

 

I have to let the sun set so I can watch it can rise again.