Lizzy

Beautiful as it was, all good things eventually come to an end. We had the time of our lives—touring the island, visiting everything Crete had to offer, and, by the gods, making love like rabbits. In the process, we managed to fall for each other, fully aware that our relationship was forbidden and destined to end from the very beginning.

Though our dynamic was never quite the same afterward, we parted on excellent terms, and to this day, nearly two decades later, we remain very close. Life moved on; we grew up, built our families, and I became the godfather of her first daughter. Yet one thing has remained unchanged: Liz is still the benchmark against which I measure all other women.

A mathematician friend of mine once joked, “We are the integral of our past moments,” his clever twist on “We are the sum of our past.” I’ve always preferred his version; it feels less cliché. People come and go in our lives, each leaving their unique mark. Liz… Liz left one of the most profound. Yes, it was only a month, but it was the ride of my life.

I didn’t mourn its end, and I never will. It’s a personal philosophy of mine: Embrace everything good life offers for as long as it lasts. Celebrate its conclusion and be grateful for having experienced it. Hold the memories close, not as bitter remnants but as sweet, enduring treasures. What Liz and I shared was a dream—a fleeting, beautiful summer night’s dream. But as dawn came, the dream faded gently into the morning light.

The same friend says, “Happiness and sorrow are local extrema.” As we live, the infinitesimal slices of time we call ‘moments’ accumulate, adding to the integral of our lives. And yet, we don’t know—we can’t know—whether we’ve reached our peak or descended to the bottom of the valley. Yet, to this day, I never had a happier moment than the first time I made her mine, and after all these years there are times that I truly ache for her and our amazing time together, but most of all, for the careless days of our youth.

But then again, who doesn’t?