things I never get to have again

It is easy, in aging, to get caught up on the things you miss, the things you never get to have again. You know, like taught skin, or romantic optimism, or mental clarity.
But there are these temporal opportunities we also lose and they only become evident when they are gone.
I will never love a dog like I loved Esme, because I will never have those years to get to know an animal without the context of all the other things that matter and need love and attention.
These things: love, marriage, children, career, are incredibly beautiful things that I wouldn't change in any heartbeat.
But relationships with pets are unique. They are so luxurious, nurturing, voluntary. Each pet reflecting circumstance. They live almost in phases, capturing youth, maturity, deep old age. I know we will likely have other pets, although the thought makes me very sad, right now. I know we will love that pet as a family, and it too will be beautiful.
But the part of me that is having such a hard time letting her slip away is the part that bonded with her, independently. Nights sleeping, just Esme and I, and then Jason seamlessly joining that team. There is this quiet, almost peaceful bond forged from moments like those that feels more like a partnership and less like the frenetic love that a family shares, with all it silly and beautiful complications.
I try not to miss the past, the present is so beautiful.
But sometimes, the part of me that got to be me, with Esme, feels like it was snatched, in the night, with no ceremony, no respect, and I want that piece back. just for a moment. In true visceral form. Who I am, in a field, watching Esme leap through the fields, so fast I could never catch her, so happy I could barely see inside such light, so beautiful she puts humans to shame and seems in deep harmony with the sun, the grass, and the birds in flight in the distance. Just that. A thing I never get to have again, a love I never get to love. And that. That breaks my heart.