There's a First Time For Everything...and a Last

-- Flying fairies from a summer too long gone. Zoey and Dad, August 2012 --

Tonight I found myself watching "You've Got Mail," and allowed myself the surprise of tears as Meg Ryan closed the door on her shop for the last time, imagining her and her mother twirling and dancing about the store. For the first time in the many times I've watched that film, my heart broke.  I thought of Zoey, and how we spent the evening watching Peter Pan and her flying about the house in my arms. She was thrilled beyond belief.  I was contemplative.  I don't want this part to end.  Of course, everything ends, and of course the film flitters onward to a happy ending, but in real life they're never happy endings. They always end with one person so desperately not wanting them to.  She has no idea. How could she?  She's four, well, very nearly four.  It will be me desperately clinging to Peter Pan and the memory of her flying around the living room in my arms. It is me who hugs her too much, and kisses her too much, and it is most definitely me who imagines us in that very last moment before the door closes.  It's only me whose eyes moisten.

Tonight, like every night, I read to her from Peter Pan, and she squeezed her eyes tight, imagined mermaids, and quickly drifted off to sleep.  She eased my temper after a day of angry outbursts re: my very selfish collection of poor misfortunes, and one lost pencil.  She rubbed my cheek and told me that everything was going to be alright, which felt good, but wasn't true.  Someday there'll be an ending and there'll be me desperately not wanting one.

F#%&ing Meg Ryan.