Wisdom

The moments you want to keep will surprise you. It’s not the big ones. It’s not the events, the occasions, the named things. It’s the quiet moments that sneak up on you, tap you on the shoulder when your back is turned, force you to turn around and face them that you wish would last forever. The infinite possibilities and wonder of childhood stretching into adulthood, the esoteric becoming concrete. You walk to the kitchen for a drink and walk back and there it is, slapping you in the face, saying ‘here I am, I will never be again,’ and you mourn and celebrate your loss in the walk back to it. It’s a dirty small apartment where your dreams and aspirations live, not where they come to fruition, that it resides. And it’s there you’ll always want to come back to. You’ll hope to come back to. Your own Valhalla where the brave go when they die.

Wisdom is a funny thing. You must assume it before it is yours, and that is the only way you will ever have it. Take it too early and it burns brightly and then engulfs itself. Too late and the wick cannot catch fire. But always, always, before it is time.