From out of another lifetime

Most of you know that the Incurable Insomniac is my partner, Steph. A couple of days ago Steph posted fifty things that she loves about me and made all the girls at work jealous. Now they all want "one" like I've got, but I'm not sure that they can appreciate how long I, as well as Steph, have waited for one another and what we have gone through in order to have what we have together. Much of what we have has been born out of much patience, endurance, loneliness, frustration, mistakes, and a tremendous amount of sorrow. When we finally did find one another, I was headed towards mid-life and Steph had already entered it. What we sacrificed in order to be together, I'm not sure that just anyone would be willing to sacrifice. What we continue to endure because we are together, I know not just anyone could endure.

For us, love isn't simply a warm, fuzzy, feeling, it's life. It's what keeps us clinging to one another when those around us try to tear us apart. It's what I've longed for my entire life, and what I found in this precious person...this person who called to me from out of another lifetime and begged me to remember...

You ask me to forget you?
You advise me calmly to forget you and love another and want that I still live?
Ah, No! I would rather die!
Come death! I wait for it courageously!
To seek consolation from another,
to give my love to another only fills my heart with dread!
Cruel suggestion! Ah! My despair will kill me.

Do not fear, my love will never be changed.
Faithful I shall always remain.
But my affliction has caused me to falter and now my soul from grief must flee.
Are you sighing? O woe outpouring?
But all is vain to one who is begging.
O Heaven, I cannot express it!

Pity me, Heaven, see my anguish, see the grief due to my affection!
Has ever such torment plagued so faithful a heart?
Has such doom or dejection ever beset such a loyal heart?
Hateful galaxies! Vile constellations!
Why should you beset me with such sorrow? Ah, why?

Text translated from Italian from the aria by W. A. Mozart, Ch'io mi scordi di te...Non temer amato bene, K. 505. Composed for Anna Storace in 1786 as a farewell gift, to be sung at her final concert in Vienna in February 1787.

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