There came a lightness
In a big metal tub, they would wash the sand off their feet and tell each other lies.
They were the usual lies. The ones shared with sincere faces. “Love you forever. You’re the only one. Til death do us part.”
Then the years started passing. There were fertility issues and bankruptcies and loved ones dying. There were the unrealized hopes. Dreams got difficult to manage. There were compromises and disagreements and other lovers.
But mostly, there was the turning away. The turning away, and then the running. And then the pain. The flopping on the deck after being hooked and yanked out of all that was familiar pain. Gutted from chin to tail pain.
In good time, there came a lightness. A point of understanding where they met.
When they stood in front of one another, when they walked side by side, stripped of expectations and regrets, their hearts hummed the tune that had drawn them to one another in the first place.
That damn tune they just couldn’t get out of their heads.
They stood eye to eye. They filled to the brim with their story. Yes, they had begun their reimagined lives. And yet there they were. Two people who had begun so long ago. There they stood, on separate paths, tangled in their bond. Mesmerized by each other’s light. Bemused by all that leftover love.
No one ever knows what to do with all the leftover love.
(I have found it helps to slip it into a back pocket, and just carry it with you, as you ease on, ease on, down the road.)
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