Dark is the Night

(This is a rough excerpt from One Good Year, a book about life, love, and traveling that I'm trying to finish)

It's harder at night to keep a rein on my mind. Lying their in darkness I can almost feel her next to me. Her head resting against my chest, a leg strung across my thigh, as she lay tightly against me. It's the night--the pure and unalterable emptiness of the night--that is the most difficult.

When the sun is up it's not as much of a challenge. Your life is in effect, there is activity, there is work. These distractions can only momentarily be broken—by a day dream or an inquisitive friend. Life takes hold again and you are forced from the lonely thought. In the darkness there is no one to distract you from your own mind. You're forced to bear what weighs on your heart.

I fought against this emptiness. I sought comfort in the companionship of others. I distracted myself to the point of exhaustion trying to avoid any chance of dealing with the devil of the darkness.

The irony is that the more we seek to distract ourselves from something, the more we encounter it. It's an endless struggle, one that is constantly fought. Inevitably this silly battle of distractions will fail and the more fully we'll experience it as a result.

Now my life is spent feeling the emptiness beside me. Often I return home secretly hoping she might be there, another sly surprise like the one so long ago. A flood of happiness overtakes me when I see that she has sent me an email. These little naïve hopes are manageable. Though despairingly embarrassing, they are minor. Just small bumps patiently waiting to be smoothed in time. It's the night—the reality of the longing, the void born from our separation—that seems unmanageable.

Night after night, each evening was traded for morning next to my love. A constancy was created. Now this expected certainty has vanished. My only companion in the darkness are those long ago memories of tender nights.