there is always tomorrow
isn't that why we part without saying our goodbyes?
‘lexistentialism’ is a bi-weekly Monday night newsletter where I share inspiration, epiphanies, and what I'm thinking about that week.
there’s always tomorrow, as the saying goes.
always another chance to write the poem. to call your grandparents. to hug your best friend. there are a million other things we think are more important in the moment, but the truth is that we have a finite number of minutes to hold love in the palms of our hands and that number is not the same for everyone we care about.
still, we put the love on the shelf. say we’ll come back to it later. save it all for another day, and another day, and another day, until the days run out and we realize we never really got to hold the love while it was here.
these are the kinds of things I’ve been thinking about over the past few days. this weekend was my family’s first in-person Passover seder in three years, and something I took a lot of comfort in is the fact that through all this change in the last several years, some things really haven’t changed at all.
my cousins still exchange secret glances during prayers. my dad still pronounces pharaoh as “par-oh” and the rest of us follow suit. my zaida still refuses to be part of that, but I can still see a hint of a smile as he silently judges the rest of us. there is still laughter, and joy, and so much love.
but while these things haven’t changed, some things certainly have. three years ago, I don’t think any of us considered the fact that we wouldn’t all be together for a few years. that the adolescents at the table would grow up in that time. that one day we’d be trying so hard to make up for lost time.
now, I think there’s an unspoken understanding that none of us are immortal. none of us have unlimited time in our daily lives to spend travelling to see each other, and none of us have the ability to quickly teleport from place to place to do so either. what it all comes down to is this: we don’t know when or if we’re going to see each other again, so all we can really do is cherish the time that we do have.
I know this all sounds unbelievably cliché. maybe that’s one of the reasons we avoid talking about it. but maybe we also avoid talking about it because we always think there’ll be another chance. and the reality is that eventually, there won’t be.
all this is to say: I saw my family this weekend. and we didn’t walk away without saying goodbye. instead, we had our seder. we kept our little traditions. we made a few new ones. and for me, that was enough. everything else is secondary.
this week’s poetry recommendation is “there is always tomorrow” by the incredible @stressedmeowt — I’m sharing the first slide here but there’s more if you click on the link or the photo itself.
anyway, I love this piece because I think we all sometimes need a reminder that nothing is guaranteed and we cannot take a single thing for granted. not a hand to hold. not a next visit. not our next breath. there is love here but we so often forget to appreciate it.
this year, I want to appreciate the beautiful things that come my way. tomorrow is not promised, but if it does come, I hope there’s room for all of us to welcome it together.
until next time (hopefully),
lex