Time is like a river - it flows by and doesn't return.
--Chinese Proverb

Sometimes at night, just before I go to sleep, I feel this pit in my stomach, a feeling of fear and loss over all the things I can't get back, ever. It's dense and immobilizing, I have to remind myself to breathe. It's melancholy and painful, like the universe has inverted and there is nothing left but a black hole...and me. Alone. So I have to close my eyes and feel my way out of the hole. On the edge of panic, I use Andy's snoring as a guidepost. I reach out for the curl of the cat asleep next to me. I recall Rachel's "I love you" an hour before when she kissed me good night. I smell the sweat in my blankets and remember that I am here now. A soul trying to be human. A human, being.