The Little Things

Once upon a time I painted a happy future life with someone… I loved.

This was a handful of months back. It was about a month before the spectacular, flame-out of a breakup. That day, though? That day we painted a happy future life together? It was uneventful. Everything was unexpected. We painted a blissful life in the lucidity of our mind while we were underneath the trees. That was it. I can still paint the picture of us at that moment – we were undeniably happy, blissful, joyful and all.

But it still holds as one of the most indelible memories I have. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not still in love, it happened, it was good, it was amazing, it ended, and we’ve b0th moved on. And she’s long gone. But I’ll never forget that day. Because it’s never, in the long run, about grand gestures – you can fix across and show up on her doorstep with a rose in your teeth and a ring in a small velvet box but I can guarantee you that – more often than not she’s going to remember the time you built together a happy life in the future and a whole lot more of s little things because once in her life she imagined life perfectly… with you.

Life wasn’t meant to be taken in large movements. The next day will inevitably arrive, you’ll sleep, and the moment will have passed unnoticed. But when you have a hundred thousand little moments, you can step back and appreciate the picture a lot more than metaphorically blowing your life on some grand moment that, in all honesty, look, you’re not Bruce Fucking Springsteen, you’re not going to be able to blow everyone’s mind every single day. You’re not Romeo and/or Juliet. There’s no reason to drink the poison together in some flame-out gesture. So that it leaves us with little stuff it’s all about the detail.

That’s what love is. Attention to every single detail.

And the moment will end. And then things will get boring. And it might get a little quiet. And it might all end terribly. And you might hate each other at the end. And you might walk away from each other once you bump across the street one day and never speak again. But that’s just how it goes.

But she’ll remember the time you held the door open for her on your first date. She’ll remember the time you laughed at her impressions on things. She’ll remember the time you stayed up all night that first time. She’ll remember how you passionately love her. She’ll remember the little things a lot longer than the big ones.

But everything must come to an uneventful ending. And I’ll tell you why you have to make the little things, the little moments count so much more:

One day, probably a while longer from now, when old age takes a hold of someone, she might just only remember your smile. Everything you ever did together, every second, every moment, every beat, every morning spent in bed, every evening spent together on the sofa, every magical moments together all of that - gone. Everything you ever did will be reduced to the head of a pin. She won’t remember your name. She’ll just remember your smile, and she’ll smile. She won’t know why. It’s a base, gut reaction. But she’ll smile, uncontrollably, and it will come from somewhere so deep as to know that you touched her on a primal, honest, and true level that no scientist, scholar, or savant could ever begin to explain. There is no more. There is nothing else. There is just this: She’ll remember your smile, and she’ll smile.

And you know what? That’s all that really matters in the end – the little things.