I’ve spent a lot of time alone in my life. Lots. Quiet childhood days alone laying in the yard looking at the sky, hoping one of those few planes passing over will stop and take me to wherever it’s going. Rainy days sitting on the stoop covered up with my little blue blanket just pondering the world and hoping for a storm so I can feel the power of the universe. Thunder and lightening never scared me, it energized me. Even the years all the kids were running through the house and yard, I’d find scarce time alone sitting on the old raggedy porch sofa reading a book or just silently looking at the world going by. All these years later, when the kids are gone and the hustle of a busy family life are passed by, I can sit and listen to the silence. So quiet that I can hear the molecules hitting my eardrums. Dogs barking down the street but it’s still quiet I hear.

But just let a sleepless 3 am roll around and the stillness isn’t quiet anymore. It’s loud. Deafeningly loud. Old songs that bring back memories of nights that you lost any connection to this world in the company of a love that moved your soul. Nights that were so wild you think back and wonder how in the world am I sitting here now. Nights when the regrets and should haves and I wish I wouldn’t haves scream the loudest. No, there’s no sound around me. Still hear the molecules hitting my eardrums but it’s drowned out by screams of my soul to get back just a few more hours of having my boys be babies again. The sound of my grandchild laughing with the joy that only a child can express. To feel the first touch of a lifelong love. To feel your face pressed against your partner when you’re dancing and feel his hand on your back holding you like you’re the only thing he ever wants to own. To hear yourself screaming at your old self for choices that were made or should have been made or you’re still paying the price for making.

And then it gets louder. Mourning the lost you, the young you, the curious and wonder-filled you. When you realize it’s all gone, it’s all over. And it’s not coming back. Never. Nobody ever tells you about the level of this noise. Nobody’s honest about what it’s really like when reality hits and the cheery and sunshiny you that everybody saw is never coming back, when you’re finally old enough to just say fuck it I’m being myself, I’m not faking it anymore. You tell me when you realize in the middle of the night that you will never again experience that love that makes you stop breathing how loud it is. In the deepest, darkest, stillest moments you spend with your soul, how loud it is.

Everyone talks about young love and how sweet and special it is. But what about old love. When you’re closer to it being over. When you spend one last time with a lover and know it’s the last time. Not because the love is gone. But because age or health or whatever you want to name it physically takes it from you. What is the old age term for the opposite of virginity? Because if there’s a first time, there’s going to be a last time. No way around it. You might know it or you might not know it. But why is knowing it so damn much harder? Because if you know it, you lose the anticipation of it. That’s it, that’s the answer. Anticipation. Expectation of a future event or activity. But why is knowing that there is no future for certain events or activities so damn loud?

No future of a hand to hold because it’s gone. What is it called? Nobody wants to name it because if it’s named it has to be acknowledged. And nobody wants to acknowledge that the life they lived is gone. You’re still here, breathing and talking but all the while knowing it’s gone and it’s not coming back. And it’s loud. And it’s loudest when it’s the middle of the night and the quietest it’s gonna get. Then eventually merciful sleep comes. Dreams of what’s no longer part of the waking world. And the silence is quiet again. Until the next time. See, anticipation never dies once you realize love is the answer and with every breath there’s still hope. Quiet hope.