Rediscovering Lost Connections

Some say the past should be forgotten. I say it never forgets us.

It clings like heat, pressing against the chest. It turns in tides, dragging up things we thought long buried. I had drifted far from Nina—nineteen eighty-five far—but one careless moment, one change in pressure, and there she was again. A lifeline I didn’t ask for but desperately wanted.

I hadn’t been touched in years. Sam’s silence stretched across our marriage like dry linen across a tomb. No warmth. No breath. No release. I was supposed to wait. Be patient. Obedient.

Then I remembered Nina’s words: “If we’re both alone in ten years…”

She may’ve closed that door, but she left it unlocked.

When the tide turned, I saw it—just off the port bow. I reached for it greedily, because that’s what drowning men do. Nina had what Sam didn’t: urgency. She knew what bodies were for. There was no hesitation. No waiting. No commandments.

I made my decision. I reached out. I called her.

And when I did, something inside me changed.

This wasn’t betrayal. It was survival.

I stopped fighting the guilt. I let it pass over me like a summer storm. I was done being righteous. I was done being dry. There are things in this life that don’t need to last forever to be necessary. Nina was one of them.

[from SEETHINGS, downloadable and free for a limited time].