The Other Possibility Was That There Was

Odd That The Future Should Be So Difficult To Bring Into Focus When The Past, Uninvited, Offered Itself Up So Easily For Inspection.

The Line Of Gray Along The Horizon Is Brighter Now, And With The Coming Light I Feel A Certainty: That There Is, Despite Our Wild Imaginings, Only One Life. The Ghostly Others, No Matter How Real They Seem, No Matter How Badly We Need Them, Are Phantoms. The One Life We're Left With Is Sufficient To Fill And Refill Our Imperfect Hearts With Joy, And Then To Shatter Them. And It Never, Ever Lets Up.

To Expect Reason Is Where The Fallacy Lies.

They Stayed, Many Of Them, Because Staying Was Easier And Less Scary Than Leaving.

Which Is Why We Have Spouses And Children And Parents And Colleagues And Friends, Because Someone Has To Know Us Better Than We Know Ourselves. We Need Them To Tell Us. We Need Them To Say, "i Know You, Al. You Are Not The Kind Of Man Who.