If I had but one day left, I would not weep, I would not mourn. I haven’t done all that I wish to do but I have everything that I’ve ever wanted. I have the courage, unlocked, to make something solid out of my dark, humid daydreams. I have the fortitude to weather on when the tides push me under and my tender body is scraped against the packed sand. I’ve had experiences that almost waiver in my mind like desert mirages at the heat of their incredible surreality. I have a devotion that overflows from my being for the people who have become the essential satellites of my lightweight gravity. My life is little more than an altar of love.

I have taken destinationless walks in sunshowers, I’ve made many sweet poor choices, I’ve laughed until I thought my lungs might deflate, I’ve loved so fully my body ached. I’ve swam with wild whale sharks and drank wine atop the rolling hills of Tuscany. I’ve written books and become wholly new people. I’ve saved my own life, over and over again. 

So if in this moment, you told me that the clock’s hands would fall tomorrow, I’d do little more than feel the crossing of the air through my body more profoundly. I’d smile at the opportunity I had to be alive, here, at the same time as you. Warm tears would spring with gratitude at another day when our hearts may sync, even just for a moment, to beat in unison. 

I would put on a beautiful dress, or maybe three. Pour a tall glass of rosé, and then another. Blow profound amounts of money on good food. Give all my things away. Tell absolutely everyone that I love them, unsparingly. Fall asleep forever to my favorite songs.

I have to believe that there’s some moment in a person’s life, as divine as so many others we can’t explain, when they know that they’re taking a breath they won’t exhale. And in that moment, I think my mind will spill forth with gratitude. That I might think of you, and of these days, when I wanted for nothing else than exactly what I had.