The Lights That Stay On

After the rain, London always looks as though it knows something it has no intention of telling you.

The pavements shine. Windows become small stages. People hurry past pretending not to look at one another.

I like people best when they think nobody is watching.

For a few seconds they stop managing the image.

That evening my phone lit up.

Are you still awake?

Later:

I was thinking about you.

There are people who disappear without having the decency to die.

They simply leave enough silence for you to do the work, then return with a sentence short enough to fit inside a notification.

I was thinking about you.

The phrase that reopens every door we had closed with great dignity and terrible carpentry.

I wish I could say I am immune to this.

I am still romantic, against all available evidence.

Being sought is not the same as being chosen

For years I would have read that message as proof.

Proof that I mattered. That I had not been forgotten. That something remained alive.

Now I try to make a distinction.

Being sought is not necessarily the same as being chosen.

Sometimes it simply means we remain available in somebody’s memory.

A light they know they can switch on when they want to check whether we are still there.

That does not make the feeling fake.

It makes it incomplete.

The value we outsource

Attention can be intoxicating because it seems to answer a question we should probably stop asking other people to answer for us.

Do I still matter?

Would somebody still choose me?

Am I still desirable?

A message arrives and, for a moment, we outsource the verdict.

The light turns on.

We feel visible again.

But perhaps the right is not always to stop desiring.

Desire is not the enemy.

Perhaps the right is to stop treating every return, every message and every glance as evidence that we are still worth something.

We can desire without giving desire the job of telling us how much we are worth.

I did not answer immediately.

Not to punish anyone.

Not to perform indifference.

Simply because I wanted to know whether I actually wanted the conversation, rather than merely the reassurance of being wanted.

Outside, a blue door reflected the streetlight.

Some lights stay on because somebody forgot to turn them off.

Others stay on because part of us still checks.