Thousands of Years

When I woke up this morning, the sky was bubble gum pink. An email from one of my dearest friends was waiting for me in my inbox. Among the many beautiful lines reminding me why he’s been one of my dearest friends for over 13 years, was this,

“You have given thousands of years of love to your friends, family, and strangers in your short 27 years on earth. You deserve to get some love back.”

Has there ever been a lovelier sentiment? I adore this idea that our years of love can outnumber our years of life. And he’s right, isn’t he? We can hold thousands of years of love inside of us. We can give it away. We can get some of it back. We deserve to, and not because we are good or virtuous or honorable, but because we are human. We are living, breathing creatures of this world. It is enough to warrant thousands of years of love.

Consider the things that outlast us – the mountains and fields and oceans. Consider their thousands of years. Touch the bottom of the ocean and feel the soft sands of its love. Watch volcanoes erupt with their boiling passion. Run through the lustrous fields, glittering with their flowers of reverence. The rivers shine. The moon glows. The earth remains, dazzling.

Consider the way years of love are infinite, and ever growing. They have come before us. They have been created and cherished and left behind by those who are no longer here. They continue to be created and cherished by us, as we leave pieces of our love, of ourselves, on mountains and in fields and deep within the everlasting oceans. They will continue to sparkle long after we’re gone.

This is the great cyclical story. Love is found. New love is created. Old love is left somewhere to be found. Someone finds it. Someone always finds it. They fill their hearts with the brimming discovery. They carry it with them. They make art out of it. They share that art. Someone else sees it, or hears it, or reads it. They understand the story.

More than once in my life I have questioned whether I am deserving of love, but it’s a foolish question. It is not a matter of deserving, for any of us. Love isn’t earned. It isn’t a prize. It is the bubble gum pink color of the sky in early mornings. It is the air we take inside of our bodies only to let it back out. It is the mountains and the fields and the oceans. It is the oldest story, in which all of us play a role. It isn’t won. It is found and created and something all of us share.

It is the way my heart flutters for an instant seeing an email from you waiting for me. It is the way that tiny flutter lasts for thousands of years.