The last love of the first half of my life told me once at midnight that I must put it into a river.

It must be a river, he said, and not a lake, for in a lake it may wash to shore too quickly; and do not throw it into the ocean, because then it may be ground to shards like shells or rolled too unrecognizably smooth like pebbles.

The past must be put into the fast deep channel of a river that seeks the sea, and if you travel the banks, you may some day see it again in the reeds, and make amends. Or it may be on the other shore, and you will wonder how to get there. Or it may make it all the way to the sea, and you will live free of regret.