Dont Blink Too Fast

I make it a habit to tell those I care about every single day how much they mean to me and that I love them. Some people in my life I have lost rather suddenly and since then I have made a vow to myself to do this...

How many more times will you do something that you love? You don't think about it, but every time you do something, it could be the last time. How many more opportunities will you get to speak to your grandparents? They may get sick tomorrow, go into a coma, and never speak to you again. How many more times will you watch the sun rise, or set? You may have an accident and go blind tomorrow. How many more times will you eat a slice of dense, rich, chocolate mudcake? Your doctor may call you tomorrow and tell you that you have diabetes, and are to go on a restricted diet. How many more times will you hold that person you love? They may break up with you tomorrow, and you'll never feel their touch again. How many more times will you roll down a grassy hill, shrieking and laughing all the way? How many more times will you snuggle up, warm and cosy in bed, next to someone who loves you? How many more times will you dance in the rain, getting soaked to the bone, and not caring? How many more times will you see your child look up at you with eyes twinkling, mouth smiling, and hear them say "Look what I did! Aren't you proud of me?". How many more times will you get to sit around with all your favourite people, and talk and laugh, and just be together?

I know of only one last, that I knew was a last. We'd been sitting on his bed for the past hour, and he had been telling me all the reasons he had to break up with me.

"It's not you, it's me.", "I need some time to think." "I'm in love with you, I just don't *love* you."

I stared at him through a veil of tears and broken sunlight. I stammered out bewildered questions, and words of protest. I was so devastated, that I begged. I actually begged him not to do this to me. To us. I sat there during the increasingly large periods of silence, chain-smoking like a madwoman. My hands shook as I raised the cigarette to my lips, and lowered it to the ashtray. buying precious seconds for me to think of something, anything. The magic words that might change his mind, or see the light. Make him understand that this was wrong and that he really needed me after all.

He just sat there, looking sullenly defiant, his beautiful eyes obviously becoming more and more annoyed by my desperate babbling and pleading. So close, less than a metre, yet the ground between us was already cracking and splitting, widening into the chasm that would separate us evermore. I silently sent pain ridden telepathic vibes to his brain;,

"Please don't leave me, oh please don't, I don't think I can function without you, you're a part of me, you're a part of my heart, and if that piece leaves, then I wont be able to breathe, I wont be able to function. I'll just stop. Cease to live. Then my body will wither away into a shrivelled husk. A parody of what it used to be when it bloomed under the nourishment of your love..."

I tried not to cry. Some people can cry beautifully, their eyes sparkling through pools of crystal tears, their voice attaining a certain timbre that conveys utter, heartbreaking desolation. I go red and blotchy and start taking great hiccupy, shuddering breaths. I didn't want him to see me that way. I didn't want to see me as the pitiful, blubbering wreck his words had made me. I wanted him to see the strong, proud, carefree woman he had fallen in love with. I wanted him to look at me and realise that he couldn't live without seeing my face every morning, without feeling my lips on his, or hearing me laugh out loud. That I was what he wanted and needed, and to tell me that he'd been mistaken. He didn't.

I made silent prayers to a god I hadn't believed in in years.

Please don't let him walk out of my life. Please don't let it end. If you change his heart, then I promise I'll change mine. I'll go to church, and sing the hymns. I'll volunteer at a homeless shelter and I'll never lie, cheat or steal again. I'll be a dutiful daughter, and fulfil my parents' dreams. I'll get a job and stop fucking around with my life. I'll do anything, just don't let me lose this glorious, wondrous, shining being who gives me a reason to live.

My tenuous hold broke, and I broke into tears. Salty rivers ran down my face, and heart-rending sobs wracked my body. I folded over like a piece of paper in the wind, trying to hold my aching insides together. Trying to stop them from bursting out of my body and spilling on the floor, like I felt they would. trying to stop my bones from shaking themselves to smithereens. Trying to stop myself becoming what his words made me feel I had become.

His hand brushed my arm, and he drew me close.

"Hush little kitten, Hush. Dry your tears, don't cry so hard. It will all be okay someday. Someday you will understand, someday you will forgive me. You'll find someone else who loves you, You deserve to be loved.. your special, beautiful..."

We lay on the bed. He held me close to him, like a little child. He stroked my back and kissed me on the forehead, as I cried and sobbed and wept. He hugged me as tight as he could, and I wished desperately to be absorbed into his body, so I could be with him always. We lay like that for hours. We lay like that until he fell asleep.

That is the last time I ever remember that happening. It used to happen every night. We would curl ourselves around each-other, fitting each curve and ridge of our bodies together, matching our breathing, matching our heart beats, until we became one single entity. It had happened a thousand times before. I knew every bump and line of his body. I knew the sounds he made, and the way he moved when he was in deep sleep, or dreaming. I knew the way he breathed. I knew the expression on his sweet, slumbering face through every minute and movement. It was a natural thing. I never thought that it would stop happening.

I knew it was the last time it would ever happen. The last time he would ever fall asleep in my arms. My tears dried on my face, as I felt his body breathing deep. My nose filled with his sweet, familiar scent. I memorised each and every little part of his face. Filing the long dark eyelashes, and the pursed, pink-rose-petal lips of his mouth, the feel of his body, pressed close to mine. I drank in every last detail of him that I could possibly perceive, and filed it away in my mind. An Image I wanted to keep with me forever.

And though my arms, body, and heart both ached, I dared not move one inch. Lest I disturb him, and finally lose that bittersweet embrace. I wanted that moment to last forever. To be able to hold on to the last remaining shreds of the glory of my happiness and love, until the ends of time.

But it didn't last forever. Eventually I had to move, or else I would have died. (As much as I wanted to, I couldn't.)

He woke up. I left.

I cried all the way, in the taxi home.

That was the one last I was aware of being a last. I'm not sure it made me enjoy it any more or any less, but it made me aware of the short life-span of things.

I'm not going to tell you that age-old adage of "Live every day as if it were your last." because you cant. It's just not feasible. Some days we are tired and cranky, some days we are rushed. Some days we just cant think straight. Some days we are going to feel the weight of the world pressing down on our shoulders. But I am going to tell you this.

When you are out with a bunch of friends, and you're all sitting around the table, drinking and laughing, and having the time of your life... When one of your parents hold you, and tells you, "I'm proud of you!".. When you eat your favourite food... When you hold your child on your lap, and they snuggle in close to you... When someone tells you a joke, and you laugh until it hurts.. when you manage to make it to work in record time, and your favourite parking spot is there.. when your lover smiles at you... When you get admiring looks and compliments for the way you look... when your favourite song comes on the radio, and you dance around the room like there's no-one watching you..

Remember it. You can't know when it's going to end. But you can hold these snapshots of the happy times in your life close to your heart, and remember them. Let the warmth infuse your being. And remember that there will always be good times. And remember to make the most of them while you can.. You just never know.