may

On Friday, I fall into bed tired but happy. I write two lines before I succumb to sleep: Today, today. Today, my heart is light, despite the weather, despite my daylong headache.

Now here we are, 24 minutes to Tuesday. I can barely remember that lightness.

Instead, I remember this: someone in the audience asks a question. “What is the hardest part…” she begins, and the rest of the question falls away. The hardest part is always the trade-off. Learning to live with it. Remembering you chose it. Wholly believing in it. It is the single hardest bit, so do it right and it can also become the very thing that saves your soul. 

I remember J talking about her old job. The pain, the shame, the hopelessness. The emotions that never get easier swallowing. I tell her she’s right, you should always walk away the bigger person. I give her new versions of maybes and what ifs. I say, it is not your fault — nobody can be a creative director at 24. I know none of this will make her feel any better, but still I hope. I hope she looks past the folly and pettiness of youth, most of all, and learns one day that this will grow into conviction, intuition, a thicker skin, a drive to prove to no one but herself that she can become the person she believes she is.

*

Now it is Monday night. And even though I never go for night runs, I make a rare exception. I walk over to the field where I run laps, up and down slopes, past shadows slinking under street lights, past bodies lying quiet in the middle of the grass, faces illuminated by the light of a phone. I will go on to have the best run I have had in a while. It is like I am flying through the night. 

But before I get there, something catches me off guard: ash falling out of the sky. There is no trace of a source in the vicinity, not a single whiff of smoke. So my first thought as I look up is not this is ash but could this be snow? I stand square in the middle of the road, watching wisps of maybe-snow floating down around me. And I tell myself, yes, it could be snow. Improbable. But maybe. Impossible. But maybe. 

*

On the side of the road this morning, I asked pb if she could take a picture of me. So here I am, about 12 hours ago now, shorts askew, hair a mess, wearing fuzzy socks that aren’t supposed to leave the house and a sweater that isn’t mine. I told pb I wanted to remember my outfit, but how true is that now? I look at this and am compelled to say: remember me here. Remember me now. Remember me this way, on a whim, on a lark, when it rains. Remember it was a Monday, but it could have been a Friday, a Thursday, maybe a Saturday. Remember me, us, you, we. Remember: you chose today. You will choose tomorrow. 

Remember, remember, remember: one day soon, all over again, this will become yesterday.