“Great stories take time to write.”
I had to remind myself of this everyday like a mantra; like an alarm clock every morning; like a prayer I whisper every night. I had to keep it playing inside my head like a new Taylor Swift song; like my mother’s errands that I’m scared to forget; like homeworks I’m procrastinating about.
And when I miss you, I needed it like a blanket to keep me warm when the cold creeps in. I had to sleep with it like a pillow I hug when I’m crying. I had to hear it over and over again until I fall asleep and drift off to a place where missing you doesn’t exist in any language.
Great stories take time to write and I wonder if in this paragraph, we are both protagonists and not either one of us. I wonder if tonight and all the days without you here by my side are parts of the rising action and not the falling one. I wonder if in this line lies behind our lifetimes tangled together like the ends of my earphone.
Great stories take time to write but I’m afraid we’ll end up like Romeo and Juliet, or Gatsby and Daisy, or Cathy and Heathcliff, or Tristan and Isolde. I’m afraid our story will one day be in bookshelves of broken-hearted, unsure cowards who let time be the pen to write their endings instead of their own hands. I’m afraid ours will be another example of an Aristotelian tragedy; a tale I would someday tell to my nieces and nephews while I’m on my rocking chair; a déjà vu of how Rose recalled the face of Jack in her memory.
Great stories take time to write and even though we are mere dots in this Papertown, I’m still hoping God assigned Jane Austen to craft the ending of our romance.