Could be twenty years, could be tonight

"Don’t you believe it? Can this be all there is? If so… have we wasted…?"

"I haven’t wasted a second. I’ve enjoyed my ride. All of it."

How many of us can say that... honestly? (How many of us can say anything honestly?) I try, you know — I do — to "carpe diem," but "fugit irreparabile tempus," and so much of it is lost to us. "Of all losses, time is the most irrecuperable for it can never be redeemed." Money cannot buy time, particularly once it has been lost, but what if it could? If I thrust this pricing gun into your hands, and demanded that you tag each and every lost moment, what values would you assign to each? $5 for the time I never stubbed a toe on the end-table you chose with the stupid, perilously protruding, wooden legs? $2.50 apiece for those mornings I never traipsed in to wake you with a cup of coffee? $3 for each time I never disturbed your dreams by crawling back into bed because I had to pee in the middle of the night? $0.25 for the time I never accidentally sneezed on your face when your absurdly bushy beard tickled my nose as you leaned in for a kiss? $1 for every time we never exchanged "I love you's" before we drifted to sleep? What about the $0.55 for the stamp you never bought to mail that letter? $4 for the never-sent text depicting a toilet/fountain combo with the "thirsty?" caption below? Each breath marks another instance like these, adding to the mounting cost. You could stem the forfeitures, but you flatly refuse. Lately I have been wondering why.