Today is May 23, 2017. It’s a Tuesday. Summer weather, although I’m wearing a sweater out of comfort and habit. I went to the Warf with Toni. We people-watched a young couple, and then an old couple, and then a man with his dog I thought looked like a Bella but was actually named T.J. We asked.
We said the young couple looked like a Becky and Sean, that they had been long-known acquaintances but now they were actually getting to know each other.
“Look at how she’s touching her hands, her face, her hair.” Toni had said. “I was doing that when I sat here. I know what she’s thinking.”
But I was listening to his laugh, because I had done that before so I believed I knew what he was thinking. The way it was a little higher, a little more polite, not as obnoxious as I’m sure ours sounded to the men on their boats nearby.
Then Becky and Sean got up and walked away, comfortably, at magic hour. We watched them go just as they had watched us arrive.
“There they go.” Toni had said. “Walking off together into the sunset.”
“What if this is their spot.” I had went on. “And we’ll know it’s their spot, and we’ll watch their relationship grow and prosper and fall in love, and then disastrously fall apart and come back together again like some romance novel. And we’ll be like, ‘There’s Becky and Sean.’ And then one day they will hear us talking about them, and they’ll be like, ‘What are you talking about? Our names are Amelia and Brett.’ And then we will apologize and they will be incredibly creeped out and we’ll never see them again.”
She had laughed at that. “Amelia and Brett.” She giggled. I had laughed too, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty for some reason.
I have been struck, again, with the realization that there are a significant amount of people in my life that I will never see again. Why haven’t I been studying them as closely as I had Becky and Sean? I can still recall what they were wearing, the way they sounded, the color of the travelling paper cups in their hands. There are times where I find myself terrified, completely overwhelmed with anxiety over the idea that I will forget how people look like when not framed by the shape of my phone. As if by them leaving, I will no longer recognize them if I were to be suddenly bumped into in a line at Walmart, or a Chapters, or for an expensive cup of cheap coffee. That the way they hold themselves, or subtly fidget with their hands, or glance upwards when entering a new room will be wiped from my mind, and it will be these things I notice now that would make them unrecognizable to me then.
I don’t know if I have the fear of losing people, but as of the moment I’m not sure what else to call it. Maybe, too, it’s just the fear of growing up. Or letting go. Or both. Or all three. Because apparently I have to be excessive that way.
Rotted Apple 