The melody, at night, with you

Sitting on the bus with the rain outside, I was pondering the mysteries of life. I don't know where the center is anymore, and things have never felt this uncertain. It's one of those troughs where all I see and know is the present, and it's certainly not the place to be. Oh, but I'm not defeated that easily. I know ways of escaping. Yes, the smell of summer rain...I remember. There certainly was another time, buried away as it is in my mind. I send my memory back to infinity, searching for something concrete to affix my thoughts on, and yours is the face it returns. It doesn't take a second for the memories to accompany it. Now I have the best ones all carefully selected, and I realize that I've forgotten how much comfort they bring. They make it quite plain that life has a broader frame than we perceive; and what's more, it's rare when we really understand the sentiment. It's strange to say, but it's almost as if I'd forgotten that it was me who went through all those times. The innocence and the happiness, that might have been a life ago, but these aren't dispassionate recollections of something I read about; the person inside all of them is me.

I can't deny that I feel some sadness: what once was one life was slowly, painfully broken in two. Once set down different roads, we had no way of finding the path towards each other. What might have been, what might have been... But no: the pain, it's had its turn. Accepting this, and just letting the past slowly cloud over my mind, I felt a moment of genuine happiness. What a moment in the midst of all manner of existential turmoil! Like a mythic lighthouse in the distance, the moment offered a reminder of why we travel through the bog in the first place. Reflecting on this miracle, I realize that I owe a great deal to the universe for making it me who has these memories, who has these feelings.

This is possibly the fourth life I'm living, and in the immediacy of the moment, I feel it to be the worst in recent memory. But I now have faith it will end. There were other mes that came before, and there is one set to succeed my current position. Uncertain as the future is, knowing it exists offers immense hope. Who knows, perhaps we'll meet again yet? Whatever the outcome, I'd like to thank you in spirit for helping remind me, for an instant, that there is a life above our lives. The thread is delicate, but it exists. Where once we danced, the vibrations linger on.