MAYBE they’re all right.

For years I’ve been told I’ll never settle.

Settle for one person. I am:

Too complicated. Too adventurous and with too much to do before I die.

MAYBE I am.

My mommy disagrees. Says I’m:

committed, steadfast, serious.

And MAYBE I am that as well but not yet to another person.

MAYBE not ever but certainly not yet over that fear of opening the door and letting him inside me, only to have him turn and want to leave once he’s arrived.

I wonder sometimes when I’ll come to want what everyone else does. I wonder sometimes if I already do. Want that Other, elusive and all encompassing.

But till I figure all that out, I’ll love the maybes instead. Throw myself into delicate play aimed at their unpacking. And for that, I’ve got these words:

Gertrude Stein. The communication of Intuition: “that is all there is to good writing, putting down on the paper words which dance and weep and make love and fight and kiss and perform miracles.”

Carole Maso. “To imagine story as a blooming flower or a series of blossomings. To change the narrative drive to better mimic one’s own realities, drives.”

And the spaces they recall.

The yellow cones shaped by head light and fog that shone out in front of me each night I drove home from the darkroom. Each night and for one year.

How could I foresee that one year would make me who I am?

The year as an independent space. That year, and each one before it has amounted to something on its own before propping up the space that follows. Building upon the place that proceeded, and forming this person. This never ending project.

And how could she foresee that boy she barely knew would return four years later? Gun her down in the campus bookstore.

It’s like a novel, my mother said when I came to her, crying. Bleary eyed, despondent, over the opportunities lost. The importance of time. The importance now, more than ever, to put down these revisions. To rewrite and reshape the meaning of these words.

I say this selfishly. Not because I knew the girl but because she could be me.

This will not be you.

How do you know?

Because the stars. Because we charted you at birth. Chartered your course.

And that is a comforting thought. That the constellations told her. Cassiopeia said. I was meant to write. Meant to write this out.

And MAYBE if that’s all I’m ever meant to do, I’ll be alright with an ending when it comes.