(no subject)
I had a useful but sad conversation about starting a retirement savings now since I won't have any family to take care of me when I am elderly. I hadn't thought much about that but am going to investigate it this week. The discussion had a stern "you are going to die alone" tinge to it (my interlocutor making the argument that babyless relationships are likely to be less enduring) which made me sad. I had always imagined something more like Pablo Neruda when he writes
...I know no other way
than this: Where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
...
When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me once more:
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.
As I get older I don't worry about "being left on the shelf" as Nat's aunt so rudely puts it, but about simply being unlucky and unsuccessful in romantic matters. The idea that I would live and die what Neruda describes has become more of a hope than an expectation.
...I know no other way
than this: Where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
...
When I die, I want your hands on my eyes:
I want the light and wheat of your beloved hands
to pass their freshness over me once more:
I want to feel the softness that changed my destiny.
As I get older I don't worry about "being left on the shelf" as Nat's aunt so rudely puts it, but about simply being unlucky and unsuccessful in romantic matters. The idea that I would live and die what Neruda describes has become more of a hope than an expectation.