Seconds

Boston was full of beauty this evening.

The temperature was a mild fifty-five degrees and the rain, which had been falling for the better part of the day had finally stopped, leaving a glimmering sheen on the streets, reflecting images of holiday decorations ornamenting the buildings and lamp posts. People were out shopping, dining, walking and enjoying the spring-like, albeit sodden and unseasonable weather. I was one of those people.

I headed home from the Symphony area at roughly seven-thirty and made a snap decision to bypass Hynes Auditorium Station, the green line stop at which I had arrived, opting instead to walk the length of Boylston Street. I had planned to bang a left and a right at the Boston Common and jump on the train at Downtown Crossing riding a straight shot on the orange line all the way to Malden.

My plans were altered when I began to suspect that I was close to Back Bay Station. I stood on the corner at a red light straining to remember how to get there. A man appeared to my right and the two of us stood there, detained by the passing traffic. “Excuse me.” I said, realizing that I could simply ask somebody if I was anywhere near my station of choice. As it turned out, I was a mere two blocks away. His directions resulted in my execution of a quarter-turn and heading perpendicular to the direction in which I was facing.

I began to experience rapid thought fragments. “My direction just changed on a dime. Everything can change on a dime. Chris’ life changed on a dime. My life changed on a dime. I bumped into a man, asked directions and now I’m headed in an entirely different direction than the one in which I was heading just one minute ago.”

LIfe is liquid. There are no guarantees and no promises. There should be no expectations, only aspirations. For the rest of my life, I will have this knowledge, this wisdom.

Earlier in the evening, I had been talking with a friendly acquaintance whom I very much adore. We walked together for a time, he, I and his dog and I posed a question to him which I had been pondering for a couple of years. I remembered that during Chris’ illness, this man mentioned that he knew how it felt to take care of someone and carry them through hospice care. At the time, I assumed that he lost a lover and I had been wanting to ask him to tell me about it for the past couple of years. Tonight, I broke my silence and asked him. My friend clarified that his best friend had died from AIDS ten years ago, while under hospice care in my friend’s home.

He shared with me his experience during his grief period, which he spent mostly in movie theaters, escaping into the lives of others in an effort to escape the pain of his loss. He recalled to me one New Year’s Day in which he sat in a theater in Times Square viewing a showing of The Titanic. I can certainly understand escapism, although I, myself have and continue to escape by way of performing and exercising. Still, the desire to be rid of the pain is the same if our venues of choice differ. He told me that at the end of his grieving spell, he woke up one day and decided that it was time to start living again.

Many people have told me that eventually it will be time for me to start living again, but somehow those words have more impact, coming from a person who has experienced trauma so closely related to my own.

I asked him to share his views on the afterlife with me. He said he needs to believe in an afterlife because he can’t believe that this cruel, fucking world is all that there is, nor can he believe that he is never going to see his friend or his grandmother again. I took note of a slight difference in our beliefs. For me, an afterlife exists. I do not need to believe it. I do believe it. I just do. Even so, his belief in the afterlife filled me with comfort. His answer was everything I wanted and needed it to be. I agree that this world is a cruel, fucking place.

I then asked him if he has ever felt the presence of his deceased loved ones and he answered that he isn’t sure. He said sometimes he can feel really good and really happy but that might be just because he is thinking about his loved ones. I can understand that. I, myself, am not entirely certain whether I feel Chris’ presence of whether I feel peace and I’m simply attributing that to my Creejie. I don’t know whether I will ever know the answer to that question.

After we parted ways and I began my trek down Boylston Street, I realized that I was experiencing an unfamiliar emotion which I could not fully identify. I was walking so slowly. I haven’t walked that slowly or felt so carefree in a long, long time. The city of Boston fills me with memories and me and Chris. Together we must have covered every remote corner of the city. Everywhere I looked was another memory. Tonight, I was unaffected by those memories. I felt no sadness, only awareness that Chris and I had been there. I know what I wasn’t feeling. Guilt. I wasn’t feeling depressed or scared and I was not feeling anxiety. What was I feeling? I didn’t know, yet.

When I finally identified my emotion, I nearly tripped over myself. I was feeling peace. I haven’t felt peace since the day Chris’ doctor noticed a mass near his bladder. The feeling was all encompassing, like someone squeezed me and all of the air and all of the tension came rushing out from within me. I was breathing! I can’t remember the last time I could breathe easily and effortlessly.

No tension. No anxiety. No fear. Just peace and the sudden knowledge that my life is going to grow into something beautiful again.

Chris’ birthday has passed. Thanksgiving has passed. Christmas and New Years Eve and New Years Day are coming. A full year will have passed since my love’s demise.

No more firsts. Only seconds. I want seconds. Second chances. Second helpings. Seconds adding to minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades of love, happiness and fulfillment.

That’s not a whole lot to want.