As he arrives he seeks her out. He finds her in the arms of her best friend, deep in conversation.

She looks up and notices him. Their eyes meet across the room and she senses, rather than sees him light up as her vision is limited without her glasses. But in this light, his face was suddenly vibrant and mischevious and so alive.

She smiles at him and he can't help the grin that slowly spreads across his face. In time, he notices infinitesimally the slight downturn of her lips and reads the microexpression he'd somehow managed to miss before.

He controls his grin and the lights begin to dim. He smiles at her but this is somehow different; a little less real, a little less alive. He understands and turns away.

She watches his eyes crinkle with disappointment and knows the regret he tries to hide behind his unhappy smile. She watches as he turns to walk away. Watches because she's told him, she is simply not ready.

His footsteps are heavy and slow. He drifts through, heading inexorably for the exit. He wishes she would come after him. But he knows she won't. He knows she is okay without him. He knows simply because she told him her feelings for him just weren't as strong as his for her.

Life goes on, and they can both but wonder.

Of humble pie and being patient.

Humility is a lesson life beats into us time and time again. Refuse to learn and eventually the lessons come around again and again. Even when you think you have learned it, there will always be times in life where you find yourself eating modest, humble pie.

It is said that pride comes before a fall, but it is always that fall which gives me clarity. It reminds me of just how friable and tenuous the strings we use to tie our lives together really are. It reminds me also that no matter what I face in life, if I am able to subdue my arrogance, put my head down and work through the feelings, I come out the other end having learned some lessons and am a better person for it.

The price of humility is patience. Patience in biding your time, patience in absorbing adversity and letting it strengthen you, rather than break you, and patience in never being in a rush to understand or to get an answer, because some things, like life, just take time.

The question then is, how long would you wait to see if something happens? How much of your life would you bet on the potential of something amazing? What, to you, is worth waiting a lifetime for, even if it doesn't arrive?

If she is amazing and just about the essence of everything you've ever wanted, wouldn't you wait too? And yet, if the reverse was true, would you still have to wait? Or might waiting make the reverse true?

Time is inexorable, and in the grand scheme of it all, our one life is just that. And yet, it is because we have such a limited life to live that we appreciate and enjoy it so much.

Life lessons for the day: Eat humble pie with someone else, wait for the things that are worth it to you and enjoy the time you have been given.