I was thinking in a Scottish brogue, because I’d just heard this guy interviewed on NPR, Lonnie McSomething.
All my life I’ve wanted to tell people I love them. Fear usually held me back, that they wouldn’t care, or they wouldn’t hear, or they would take too much from me once they knew.
Never throw love away, never neglect it. Never assume you’ll find better love somewhere else. Take it wherever you’re lucky enough to find it, and always try to return it in kind. Don’t take so much for granted.
Imagine me maintaining anybody’s equilibrium.
I often think my life would be a lot easier if I were a mute.
I love the slow, warming sensation of my body going numb when I drink.
I hate jealousy. At least it’s its own punishment; it makes me feel like hell.
Misery alternates with euphoria.
What was it called, that symbol of the serpent eating its own tail? It probably signified infinity, endlessness, timelessness. But for me it would mean the effort to love well going on and on, round and round, always imperfect and always forgivable. The best we could ever do for each other.
Ultimately, in the very grand scheme of things, it’s irrelevant whether my life lasts fifty more years, or five. Or two. The point is to live it, not wait through it. And I’m alive now – I can pick flowers, pet the dog, eat cinnamon toast. How foolish I would be to let my mortality, which has been there all along, since the second of my birth, spoil my love of these things. So I won’t. I’ll have to remind myself constantly, but starting now, I intend to live until I die.