the flowers hanging above my window are gone

 dear diary, 

    sometimes I wonder why people buy cut flowers for their loved ones when they know they're going to eventually die. 

    now don't get me wrong, i love a bouquet of fresh lilies and roses in my room as much as the next girl, but i can't help but sit and stare at the wilting flowers on my kitchen table and think about grief. why do we get into relationships that we know will not last? when we know they will eventually come to an end and inevitably cause suffering? 

    i think back to my first relationship at 17 and how utterly willing i was to give my heart to a boy that held it gently at first. back then we thought we would have to do long distance and i cried my eyes out for days knowing this. although currently i don't enjoy ruminating on what was, i will refer to this analogy he often used to describe our predicament. "the oreo analogy:" he called it as he drove me home one night, with my eyes swollen and his hand carefully holding my own while he used one hand to steer and move the clutch, "choosing to enjoy the present (the white filling) knowing that there's a limit (the chocolate cookie)." i had laughed and said that he couldn't compare our relationship to a cookie but he just shrugged and smiled, content he had made me smile through my preemptive misery. after that night, we agreed to enjoy the present as it was, in each other's company and with the knowledge that love has no boundaries. 

    maybe that relationship turned me into a bit of a romantic cynic. i will not deny i have become a bit skeptical in the face of love and tenderness. but as i sit and watch the last petals on a dahlia fall, i wonder why truly do people buy cut flowers for their loved ones when they know they're going to eventually die? is it worth it for that short moment of beauty? 

    i used to keep every bouquet i had been given by the people i care about, hanging them above my window like a hunter displaying their prized head, dead and hung- no, see? i did it again. a romantic cynic until i die, i guess. perhaps a better comparison would be like a mother, proudly displaying her daughter's drawings on the fridge, lovingly stuck with a magnet worn with age. 

    once upon a time, i care(d) deeply about these people and the stories they brought into my life. there are all of the beautiful souls i call my friends who have been there without fail every time i blow out my birthday candle, that boy at 15 who was the first boy flowers to be tacked on my walls, and my parents every single award ceremony, birthday, and blue day when i could not get out of bed. there was the first bouquet to be given by a boy i was body and soul in love with, the one who gave me my first taste of devotion and heartbreak all in one spoonful. there were flowers from everyone i had given my heart to, at least in small slivers, and who had given me a physical manifestation of their love. 

    maybe that's why people give cut flowers to their loved ones. even an eventual death does not compare to the inevitable smile that will grace their face and remind them they are cherished. 

xoxo, 

dani