the missing

Sun rays, light tones, blurring tail lights in the fast lane, a worn-out hat, a glass of lemonade – half-empty, golden hour, scent of ocean, a laugh trailing away.

She sits on a wooden bench underneath the window sill, looking out into her backyard.

She has lived a long life.

She’s come to the conclusion that all it really is, is an endless series of stills, strung together to make up this strange variety show, this wildest of all dreams that is our own life. ‘Whatever it is that makes us nostalgic for things,’ she thinks, ‘it’s rooted in these photographs stored in our brains, the ones that we lived through and made more exquisite through longing for them for the rest of our lives once they were gone, all the while missing the chance to hold on to what will become the next nostalgic print in our memories.’

It’s a curse, really.

In being so occupied with how her life once was, she forgot to enjoy the things staring her right in the face, thus ending up in a never-ending vicious cycle of longing.

For places, for people, for the warm feeling that a certain evening gave her, for the smell of someone else, for the unique way the sun shone onto the water on a specific day on a holiday far away from home when everything seemed easy and life seemed like one great adventure.

“I think that that’s the big tragedy of life,” she mutters to herself.

The missing,

in both its bitter meanings.