She emailed to apologize for everything. Six months late. As if today is the only day I deserve respect and the meager amount of dignity that replying to a six month old email begging someone to still want you offers a person.
Frankly, I would’ve preferred she kept it a draft.
Today is not unlike any other day that ever was or ever will be. I am still susceptible to disease. There is still a chance I will be killed by a moving vehicle when I cross the street. My ears still ring, my shit still stinks, and I still have a hard time getting a grip on reality. I am not special or unique. I say “six months late” solely because that’s how I understand humans to conceive of time, as I do. That I should have gotten this email long before I did. But I also understand that that’s not actually how time works. There is not a past or a future. There’s only homogenous present, all the time, forever. Today is not my day any more than it is yours, or your brother’s or sister’s, or even your great aunt Gretchen’s who died in ’93, or an entire country’s. Days of birth are meaningless because we’re all being born all the time. Everything is happening exactly all at once.
I understand that this is all one big contradiction, like it always is. What I’m trying to say is this: choosing today to send me an email is arbitrary. Keep your apologies to yourself, or save them for the people who need them and, more importantly, for when they need them.
On Time
She emailed to apologize for everything. Six months late. As if today is the only day I deserve respect and the meager amount of dignity that replying to a six month old email begging someone to still want you offers a person.
Frankly, I would’ve preferred she kept it a draft.
Today is not unlike any other day that ever was or ever will be. I am still susceptible to disease. There is still a chance I will be killed by a moving vehicle when I cross the street. My ears still ring, my shit still stinks, and I still have a hard time getting a grip on reality. I am not special or unique. I say “six months late” solely because that’s how I understand humans to conceive of time, as I do. That I should have gotten this email long before I did. But I also understand that that’s not actually how time works. There is not a past or a future. There’s only homogenous present, all the time, forever. Today is not my day any more than it is yours, or your brother’s or sister’s, or even your great aunt Gretchen’s who died in ’93, or an entire country’s. Days of birth are meaningless because we’re all being born all the time. Everything is happening exactly all at once.
I understand that this is all one big contradiction, like it always is. What I’m trying to say is this: choosing today to send me an email is arbitrary. Keep your apologies to yourself, or save them for the people who need them and, more importantly, for when they need them.