it's the longest day of the summer and i’m still thinking of you

a letter about borrowed time, no one & everyone

It is the longest day of the summer. I am averaging 3 hours of sleep per night. It is 40 degrees at 3 pm, and I can’t do anything else besides lay on the cold floor of my apartment and balance a glass of water on my head. I think it is Tuesday, but it might almost be Wednesday. The days of the week confuse me because I am back to leading a double life. 

Now, more than ever, I am particular about my time. There is so much I want to see, and so much I want to do, that I can’t bear to risk spending 60 minutes together with a complete stranger.

So, I will spend my afternoon alone, back at the bar with the wooden beams and chandeliers and wine bottles that line the wall. I am lost in my own world, and there is no where else that I think I belong.

I will still drink espresso in a heatwave. I think there is something romantic about standing at a counter, after a lunch date with Lambrusco, and thinking about when we only existed when we first met. 

He tells me he wants more time. And I will replay the conversation that I thought I’d easily forget - over, and over, and over again. But having too much time, means having too much time to think about you.

He tells me we understand each other, but I don’t think we’re alike at all. I sip my espresso and realize that we both want something that doesn’t belong to us. These summer afternoons are built on ignorance and bliss and borrowed time, and I wonder what he’ll give up to have what he’s always wanted. 

However, I cannot give up what doesn’t belong to me. She told me there are easier ways to learn this lesson, but I think she was wrong. This is the one time I am thankful that I can talk myself out of everything, and make myself believe in something from anything. 

Today the day is longer, the floor is still cold, and I will comb my hair for the third time in the hour. 

More time will not give us what we love, and it won’t give us back what we’ve lost. And I wonder if he knows this. I tell him these conversations are beginning to make me sad, and I wish we didn’t understand each other as much as we did. 

I smooth out the wrinkles in my linen, and ask myself what she means by an easier lesson. Is it falling, then leaving? Or leaving, then falling? 

It is now 5 pm, and I am tired of lying on my apartment floor. I am thankful that the night will become shorter, and maybe we will fall less and less in love.