Recycling for the Reluctant Adult

Do you ever think about the new people in your old spaces?

I do. Mostly in the fall. Winter, too. Mostly at night. Mostly in regard to boys I used to love - some of them I still love, but differently; will always love, but differently.

Their roofs, their balconies, their fire escapes. Stoops, backyards. Private outdoor spaces, places that make the universe seem like maybe it belongs to you. Walls covered in graffiti. Tree tops. Twinkly blankets of stars overhead; skies so clouded with people and their lights, it's all a dappled purple above. Radios playing, rain falling, sirens squealing. Or quiet. So quiet you can hear the breath move through your lungs.

Places you will never go again. Places that would never look the same, even if you could. Perspectives shift, they do not play.

New people on those balconies now, occupying those barely-outside spaces; drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, considering the bricks across the alley. Hearts breaking out of their chests, bored out of their minds. Lost to everything, desperate for anything. Falling in love, falling out of love, hiding from love entirely. Always feeling like they are on the verge of something.

Just like you, just like you, just like you. Just like you.

Girls you will never meet. You're all connected, though, right through. Through the railings you've held, the stairs you've climbed. The tears you've shed in bathrooms; the smiles that come when there's not even a reason, the moment just takes you, it's too perfect, it's fleeting, and you know it. We miss those moments all the time, sometimes just seconds after it's too late. But when you manage to catch one....I don't surf, of course, but I imagine it must be something like catching a wave. I can see how they might be transcendental the same way.

Memory is a double edged sword. It can be sharp on one side, dull on the other. It cannot be trusted. But it is infinitely valuable. A moment you couldn't wait to get out of ends up being one you return to over and over again. The lessons you didn't enjoy learning: how to admit to yourself that you're wrong, how to recognize you're making a mistake in the middle of it. That's probably the shit that makes us better able to jump up and catch the next one. To see it coming, to appreciate it while it's happening. Metaphorically speaking.

I don't know what even made me think of all this. Other than it's winter, and I started writing this at night, and I'm thinking of people I've loved.