He was on the edge. I didn't know what to tell him. Looking down, I saw that it was quite a view, beautiful and inviting. And for a moment, I understood. So this is where broken hearts go 3am in the morning.

I used to believe in saving lives. Now I am resigned to the idea that lives simply play out based on our decisions and things we cannot control. The truths I know might not be the truths anyone wants to hear. The things people have to do might not be the things they can do. I can talk about freedom and dreams, but that would just make things harder. There is a pain in empty spaces that cannot be filled with words...well, at least none of the words I know. There is a longing, a whisper of things that might not be for this lifetime. There is waiting that could just as easily be a slow breaking. There are beautiful things you'd wish you never knew; it just makes the shadows of the world a little darker and the lies a little more cruel. I wish I could say, tomorrow would be a better day. But that's one thing among many others that I can't guarantee. I know, I really do...in your heart and mine, we just want to be set free. I'm sorry that no one would ever really know who you are. Maybe they'll miss you, the parts they knew, the parts they thought they saw. I wish I could say that someday people will finally understand. But I don't really know. I'm sorry if you've ever come to the thought that the love you found in this world was not enough, I really am.

I left him there, standing on the edge. Either way, I already knew...that somebody already died that night.

....

"How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. One must live in the middle of contradiction, because if all contradiction were eliminated at once life would collapse. There are simply no answers to some of the great pressing questions. You continue to live them out, making your life a worthy expression of leaning into the light."

-Barry Lopez