#77

What they say about people who live next to waterfalls is true.
What do they say ?
They say that people who live next to waterfalls don’t hear the water.
They say that ?
They do. Of course, your great-great-great-grandmother was right. It was terrible at first. We couldn’t stand to be in the house for more than a few hours at a time. The first two weeks were filled with nights of intermittent sleep and quarreling for the sake of being heard over the water. We fought so much just to remind ourselves that we were in love, and not in hate.
But the next weeks were a little better. It was possible to sleep a few good hours each night and eat in only mild discomfort. Your great-great-great-grandmother still cursed the water, but less frequently, and with less fury. Her attacks on me also quieted. It’s your fault, she would say. You wanted to live here.
Life continued, as life continues, and time passed, as time passes, and after a little more than two months : Do you hear that ? I asked her on one of the rare mornings we sat at the table together. Hear it ? I put down my coffee and rose from my chair. You hear that thing ?
What thing ? she asked.
Exactly ! I said, running outside to pump my fist at the waterfall. Exactly !
We danced, throwing handfuls of water in the air, hearing nothing at all. We alternated hugs of forgiveness and shouts of human triumph at the water. Who wins the day ? Who wins the day, waterfall ? We do ! We do !
And this is what living next to a waterfall is like, Safran. Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night’s sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn’t hear her husband’s ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who loses a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your great-great-great-grandchildren’s will be. But we learn to live in that love.

it’s true what they say. I didn’t message you happy birthday because I deleted your number & I forgot what’s your number. But most of all, because even though i was counting down, I only remembered it was your birthday once during that whole day. I didn’t expect this but I got over you.

#45 Nineteen Minutes

He was thinking of the equation for happiness as he headed to the office. One of the tenets of his breakthrough – H = R/E, or happiness equals reality divided by expectation – was based on the universal truth that you always had some expectation for what was to come. In other words, E was always a real number, since you could not divide by zero. But recently, he wondered about the truth of that. Math could only take a man so far. In the middle of the night, when he was wide awake and staring up at the ceiling, knowing that his wife lay beside him pretending to be asleep and doing the very same thing, Lewis had come to believe that you might be conditioned to expect absolutely nothing from one’s life. That way, when you lost your first son, you didn’t grieve. When your second son was jailed for a massacre, you were not shattered. You could divide by zero; it felt like a canyon where your heart used to be.

#43 A Beautiful Mind

I’ve always believed in numbers. & the equations & logics that lead to reason. But after a lifetime of such pursuit, I ask : What truly is logic ? Who decides reason ? My quest has taken me through the physical, the metaphysical, the delusional, and back. & I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life. It is only in the mysterious equations of love, that any logical reasons can be found. I’m only here tonight because of you. You are the reason I am, you are all my reasons.

-John Nash, in A Beautiful Mind.

#37 once again, God’ faithfulness

Grieving can be like that. While there is sadness in looking back, it also includes a promise of joy in trusting God for the future. Even in a devastating loss, we have this hope : The Lord provides joy in the midst of grief

- Dennis Fisher

i was feeling stressed over 2222 & thought maybe QT will lift my spirits up about my studies. but turns out the Lord has other plans for my QT. how very very apt. (& this is inclusive of the fact that i haven’t been faithfully doing QT this week :x)

i MUST stop doubting God. (: (: (so not very easy, faith in the most trying times is very hard to come by)

#30

“Lollipops turn into cigarettes. The innocent ones turn into sluts. Homework goes in the trash. Mobile phones are being used in class. Detention becomes suspension. Soda becomes vodka. Bikes become cars. Kisses turn into sex. Remember when getting high meant swinging on the playground? When protection meant wearing a helmet? When the worst things you could get from boys were cooties? Dad’s shoulders were the highest place on earth and mum was your hero? Your worst enemies were your siblings. Race issues were about who ran the fastest. War was only a card game. And the only drug you knew was cough medicine. When wearing a skirt didn’t make you a slut. The most pain you felt was when you skinned your knees, and goodbyes only meant until tomorrow? And we couldn’t wait to grow up.”
-Anonymous