Waiting is a heavy word.

Unfulfilled.

“Only unfulfilled love can be romantic.”

Is it also true that only unfulfilled lives can be the ones truly lived? I don’t mean for that to sound absurd. We are born into this world where we’re conditioned to believe that a fulfilled life means certain things: accomplishments, relationships, families, careers, time. Fulfilled always means a certain amount of time. Typically, given the averages and a little luck, upwards of 70 years here on Earth.

I will say this, and I know I’ll be criticized for it, but I’ll say it anyway. I believe in what Woody Allen writes, that rather often it is unfulfilled love that is the most romantic. Likewise, I believe that often those lives which are “unfulfilled” by societal standards are the ones best lived.

I was talking with Ophelia the other day about making a non-bucket bucket list. This would, essentially, amount to a bucket list. But the premise of the conversation was that life is short and you’ve got to know why you’re here. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really subscribe to plotting out your life on a grid as if it were a construction schedule, complete with budget. And to use another phrase I’ve recently been reminded of - YES, God does laugh at our plans. They’re never ours, because the future is never ours. The moment - this moment - me writing this and the moment when you read it - they are gifts.

The love of my life - the love that turned my world upside down when I least expected it, kept me up at night and gave me the best sleep (next to him) I’ve ever had, that made me wake each morning thinking only the best and brightest thoughts about what the future (knowing it was never ours) might hold - that love has remained unfulfilled. But it is still that love that keeps me awake some nights, now. It is that love that makes me feel so incredibly fortunate, so lucky, so unique to have had that snippet of time with him. In the end, all the phases of our lives are snippets after all, no matter how long or how short a time we have here. And it is the fear of the loss of the source of that love that has me writing these words now.

I go back and forth, over and over it. Is it better to have loved and lost? Better to have seen once? Better to have had any certain experience at any expense than never to have had the chance at all? Tonight, I will recant again, and I’ll say yes.

No unhappy ending, no loss ever outweighs preceding moments of perfection when that question pops into your head, “Does it get better than this, or is this as good as it gets? If this is it, I’m okay.”

If the last moments you ever spend with someone - for whatever reason - are terrifying, painful, and even if there are times you wish you didn’t have to get through, that you could just stop it all…stop the pain, the regrets, stop time. If those are your last moments do they take away the beautiful ones that must have come before? My answer is no.

If we define fulfilled lives as lasting a certain amount of time, including certain milestones, then my question is how much are we missing? Just like Woody Allen’s idea of love in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, shouldn’t we allow for the possibility that unfulfilled ones could be the most worth living?

Annie sat across from me at dinner tonight and recounted something she’d said to him earlier, “Two years is plenty of time to love someone.” And it is.

We love, and we lose, and it’s part of life, just like death. There is a beginning and an ending to every chapter. It’s just that in our beginnings, if we’re lucky enough for them to be mesmerizing, we forget that there will be an ending.

ENDING. Two definitions for “ending” include: “the object for which a thing exists; purpose” and “the furthermost imaginable place or point.” Ending’s aren’t always bad. Ending’s can be our purpose, and they can be the exact thing we imagined - or what we never could possibly have imagined.

The important thing is being open to romance - fulfilled or unfulfilled - and being prepared to live the life we’re given. We don’t need happy endings to experience great love, and we don’t need all the time in the world to create untainted moments that are forever ours…unlike the future.

I can’t help but think about you. I try so hard not to, and the best I’ve come up with are days when I just think about the good things: memories of moments that seem so far away now. And then, just when I’m at that place where I don’t feel lost, and I start to think it’s all going to be okay, things like this happen.

I meant what I said. I need time. The real truth? I need my life back. I want my life back.

I want my bed back, and to no longer feel wrong in it alone.

I want safety pin tags on boutique clothes back.

I want Boston to be the city I’m in love with, and not the city where every corner reminds me of you and the brief time we spent there.

I want to rewatch every movie we ever watched together and have them belong to me again, even if they were yours.

I want to sleep in my red satin sheets again and not close my eyes and think of you laughing about them sliding off the bed.

I need Annie to not know that she needs to ask me if popcorn somehow reminds me of you.

I want all our songs back. Yes, the ones I showed you, but especially the ones I’d never heard before you.

I don’t want to be tempted to watch the Sci-Fi channel any time I’m alone with a television. I never did before, but it’s like you said - “The History Channel is a gateway drug.” Who says that? It’s your fault. (And no, I still haven’t seen Star Trek.)

I want to stop picturing you in the kitchen, doing a coffee dance.

I want slicing potatoes back. Every time I do it you say in my head, “No, do it like this.” It’s just slicing potatoes. How did you take that from me?

I want the hours between 3 and 5 am EST back. They’re when I wake, look at my phone, think of you.

I want to be attracted to someone without blue eyes and dark hair. Just once.

I want to stop catching a glimpse of the men’s sweater section and thinking of you.

I want my morning showers back. They were always my time to myself, and then they were ours. I want them back, as I’m alone every morning now.

Does this not seem fair? This morning, while it was still dark, lying in bed, wishing I would turn over and you’d be there, but knowing all I had was the phone I’d just pressed end on, these are the things that came to mind. Give them back to me, or come back. The decision has always been yours. And if you’re not coming back, then please stay as far away as possible.

It needs to be said:

unchainedmelody:

I love movies.

I love sitting in a dark theater and escaping into a different world.

I love watching the story unfold.

I love seeing the actors and actresses take on different roles, and watching them become the characters that they are portraying.

But I hate, hate, hate ( dislike, abhor, detest, loath) when someone in the Movie Industry decides to go in and ruin a perfectly good film by remaking it, casting new actors and trying to make it more ” modern”. I just read on IMDB that they were going to release Labyrinth in 2010, yes Hilary Swank is said to be attached to the project but that is beside the point, she’s a wonderful actress but whatever role she gets won’t have been meant for her. It won’t be the same.

Does that make any sense? Does the fact that I can’t picture anyone but David Bowie as the Goblin King, or Jennifer Connely as Sarah, really sound that absurd? I don’t think so…..

alright, I’m done Ranting Now.

Well said. ::round of applause::