How lucky we are

I am laying in my bed on my side. My dark hair is splayed out across my black and white pillow. It is the most ordinary pillow you have ever seen. To see me now, there is nothing special, you would flip this channel. The workday is over. The workday was ordinary. I will forget it before long, and that part of me will now rest.

My cat Mally is laying across from me in bed. I place one hand on her. My closet door is open but otherwise invisible now, the clothes I was going to put away no longer matter. When I put my hand on her, she purrs. When I remove my hand, she still purrs, but it is softer. This is what I am to her. There is no other sound. I no longer notice my breathing, only hers. Her eyes close. The air conditioner rattles and wakes her up. It’s the only other thing in the world here.

There is a mirror across from me. I don’t look into it. I am not avoiding it, although sometimes I do. It is something I don’t need tonight. But if I never saw one again, I would only miss my eyes.

I finished watching American Beauty for the first time in years tonight. I have mixed feelings about the film. But there is a line I love. I think it is the most perfect sentence anyone could say. It is said between two young lovers.

“Do you know how lucky we are to have found each other?”

I skip a lot of that movie. Maybe 80% of it. But I find that scene a few times a year and replay it.

I could take that sentence and slice it so many ways and distribute it to anyone who has ever moved me, who I have ever found beautiful, who has ever brought me peace.

Do you know?

Do you know how?

Do you know how lucky we are?

To have found each other.

I do. I do.