Faithless Aurora

[On]

She just sat there as if paralyzed by a thunderstrike. Eyes wide open, lips parted, fingers entangled in my hair. “Or maybe i’m wrong.”, i said, shifting my gaze away from her and into the distance of the night.

“Maybe love isn’t the most important thing, even though we like to believe it is.”, i continued. Regaining her composure and pulling her fingers away, she asked: “Then what do you think is?” Leaning back on my arms, i looked up at the city-illuminated sky. “Living. Experiencing the good, the not so good, the bad and moving on, thirsting for more, remaining curious and fearless in the face of the unknown. You know how it is said that time flies when you’re having fun but also crawls when you constantly look at a clock? What if somebody had fun while constantly looking at a clock? What if they saw more than just changing numbers or clock arms ticking away? It would all depend on the meaning they themselves perceived. Time is unique. It never repeats and it’s constantly within us, yet we like to think of it as something exterior that just exists as a tool of measurement. But, there is nothing to be measured within us. Or at least, it can’t be measured with any tool that obeys the rules of the physical world. The meaning of the time we spend living, can only be measured by ourselves. Our life is as meaningful or meaningless as we perceive it.

We live in a time where hedonism is the preferred way of life, chasing after pleasure, happiness and enjoyment, while trying to flee as quickly as possible from negative emotions, only to realize in the end that, what we perceive as positive emotions, hurt us. And that’s the point where we begin to fall into despair, where we question our meaning in life, thinking that we moved forward, but instead see that we looped back at the beginning. As somebody wise once said: “Everything is a circle.” Every circle is unique, but still a circle. We run in circle after circle until we die. Looking at life from this perspective you might ask: “What’s the point?” I had quite some time to think about this while you were taking a walk and i believe that we are born into this world to live and to extend that life as much as our human conditioning allows us to, embracing the good as well as the bad. It’s as simple as that. As for the “how?”, there is no blueprint one can follow. You must decide for yourself. That’s where curiosity and fearlessness come into play. Sure, there is the option to follow other peoples advice but there may come a time where you will feel as if you lived someone else’s life. Now i understand why you don’t like the lovey-dovey stuff other people do on special occasions of the year. You tried and didn’t like it.”

I smiled to her. “So what does this mean for us?”, she asked with an expression of curiosity. “It means that we are both free to be as close or as distant from each other as we see fit. We might not always see eye to eye or feel the same way towards one another, which could make one of us feel emotional pain but that’s ok. There is no eternal love or love that can last a lifetime. A “couple” is just a label and labels restrict us from being us. I don’t want that for either of us. Our love should be a hypothetical, like Schrödinger’s cat, where we love each other but at the same time we don’t, regardless of what an outside eye may see. Where’s the point in forcing ourselves to be loving towards the one we consider our partner if we don’t feel genuine desire or passion? We would be lying to them and from my experience, nothing good can come out of this in time. Distance is just as important as closeness.”

I lit up a cigarette as she slowly raised herself from the edge of the sidewalk. “Well then, i think it’s time i should be going.”, she said, turning around and walking away towards the entrance of her apartment building. “Have a good night and see you in a few days.”, she uttered. I looked behind me at her slender figure, waltzing gracefully under the street light and shouted: “You will be missed!” She swinged around, gazing directly at me and with a smile she said: “Good!”