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"Time"

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‎“This is for you.

Hey, remember how we would tear through life with this desperate urgency, like we were hurtling towards it all because there was no way it would wait for us? God, we were giddy. The conviction was stigmata levels wasn’t it? It never occurred to me that we would fail. Of course we wouldn’t always win, we’re not machines, but it never dawned on me that we wouldn’t get there in the end, not ever. We were gonna be huge. But it’s so funny how life is short but interminably long. Thursdays especially for me, strangely. When my dad died — dad’s have a tendency of doing that don’t they? — it all happened so fast but the actual dying bit, the crossing over, felt like matrix bullet time or even Zeno’s paradox, it was the time splitting, then splitting, splitting splitting splitting forever and honestly, and this will make me sound old but I thought if the rest of my life felt this infinite I couldn’t tolerate it. I absolutely couldn’t stand it. And then I thought, and this is the bit I wanted to tell you, is that what if we lived here? Right here. How luxurious could that be? I’d look at the sky more. Walk as slowly, or as annoyingly as Uni, the way she has to smell everything, every flower, puddle, grass patch, as if it’s all new. I would look into my friends eyes, my family’s eyes, your eyes, my own eyes, and feel so lucky. Maybe not even luck — grace. There’s that thing of how you can’t earn grace. You don’t get less because you’re undeserving and you can’t manipulate it for more. It’s just there infinite but discernible amounts and it carries you a little while when you can’t run anymore. Our favorite Ocean Vuong once signed my book, “Thank you for being”, that was it. I didn’t have to do anything else. Ugh, how good is that? It’s kind of permission really isn’t it ?

I miss you."

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Mary HK Choi