you don't know what you've got until it's gone

It's when you value something that you fear losing it. Thoughts of living without something you value or hold close might make you nervous. You may be attached to your computer. Your car. Your bed. Hot water; creature comforts.

But then the power might be out for a while, cut off by a storm perhaps or maybe a horrific traffic accident takes out a power pole. You are left with running water, but it's cold. It becomes a terrible inconvenience, not having electricity, but you manage and you get on with things as best you can. Candles are brought out, board games are played, wine is drunk.

Inevitably the electricity is restored.

Perhaps your house burns down. What terrible misfortune! You lose everything dear to you, all the things that you have collected over time, all your memories encased in paper or metal or wood. You favourite things are gone. All of them. Perhaps you are insured; a small consolation. But you rebuild and over time, little by little, you replace the things you lost. You may find yourself wistfully thinking about your copy of 'Catch 22', a dog eared favourite turned to ash. You miss it. But it is gone and you realise that your life is going ok without it. Your attachment to it fades. Your friend buys you a new copy for your birthday and in the act creates a new memory for you both to treasure.

But a person, a person can't be replaced. There might be other candidates for the position of lover or friend, but you never really forget the ones that came before. Despite your life moving on without them, maybe being better for having left them behind, maybe not, there are

gaps.

You sense them, the gaps. Sometimes they are obvious; the emptiness of one in a bed made for two. The last message you have from them cold in the archives of your email. Or sometimes the gaps are more sublime. Maybe they will be the only person you will have known to love the colour purple.

It's the gaps that make you want to freeze time.