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| I was lying in bed last night when I realized it was February.
Of 2012.
February 2012.
As in three years beyond the absolute worst thing I have ever done and had done to me. Three years beyond some high school romance that outlived itself through undergrad before I finally got scared and you finally started listening. It’s three years later and I was laying in bed last night, realizing it takes about a thousand days to fix what I never thought could be fixed.
Three years later and once again it’s February. February. Two Thousand and Twelve.
Not February of 2009, when I waited eight days before finally calling, a day after your birthday, to tell you that I wasn’t sure any of those high school promises were going to hold up. To tell you I was too young and felt too much pressure and that I was too scared to be what I thought you needed me to be. Not February of 2009, when I spent Valentines Day on a ski slope with two other girls and clumsily woke the next morning beside one of them; proud when I should have felt humbled, using brave words when I knew I was scared to death.
Not February of 2010, when your Aunt Cathy finally gave in to esophageal cancer and you called me when we had agreed not to talk, because you thought it was a sign from God. And then you called again the next month when the same stupid disease took your Uncle Jack. And then your mom got sick and I spent June slowly making amends with your relatives and trying to fit back into the picture. To walk in Susan G. Komen and fit back in because you needed a strong shoulder to cry on and I wasn’t strong enough to tell you I couldn’t be that.
Not Feburary of 2011, when I was full of late night mental promises to start finding my faith and start living like I really meant it; half convincing myself I was in love with someone else and half convincing myself that that was okay. Not February of 2011, with too many exams and too many hard liquor promises. Three or four different girls were supposed to be you, you know. The next you. With different holds from different hands. But I didn’t care; I was too drunk or too numb, or maybe a little of both.
Twenty-Five, right?
Has it really been three years?
It was your birthday on Saturday, and for the first time since I can remember, I forgot. The 11th came and went and I thought of little more than the patients I had to get through in the morning and the drinks people were talking about after work.
I’m sure you had a busy day today. Second graders probably love Valentines Day. In a lot of ways, I’m sad that I don’t get to see you now, at this moment, as I pictured for so many years. Never growing old, doing what you always wanted. With six or seven-year-old hopes and dreams holding you up and letting you down.
It’s February of 2012 and I now know that you don’t have to fall back in love with someone else to fall out of love.
It just takes a thousand days.
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Four years ago
I was simpler.
Quietly confidence in
the things I knew,
and unaware of what I did not.
I was four years into
the strongest and most shining example
of what love could and can still be,
and I was unafraid
of the future.
I didn’t know any other mouths,
Couldn’t spell any other names.
Couldn’t frame the feeling
of any other fingertips or shoulderblades
Because I was yours and you were mine.
And then three years ago
I was wiser.
I suddenly knew the difference
between loving and having loved,
the space between needing and needed.
I was four days removed
from the curls on your head,
the rhythm of your pulse,
and I was drawing parallels
between what life had thrown me
and what I thought was fate.
I have spent these years
with my nose in textbooks,
my fingers on flashcards.
Learning complicated concepts,
procedures and ways to explain them;
And it makes me wonder if
I had my head in the right place
and my heart in the wrong one.
Because I am now smarter.
More complex.
I am now more qualified
in matters of anatomy and chemistry,
physiology and pharmacology,
but I am no closer to you
than I ever was.
No closer to closure, fate,
or any other name
for what I want and once had,
back when I was simple.
Yours.
And you were mine.
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| I remember a few years ago, when I was realizing I was growing up. There were tangible changes every day that I would grab hold of and then let them go; content to let the universe pull where it pulled and comfortable with the thought of myself – older and wiser and better off.
But now all of a sudden I realize I’ve stopped recognizing the changes. Reduced to daily routines: Hi I’m Dr. So and So; When was the last time you checked the blood sugar? The drops take about fifteen minutes to work, can I walk you out to the waiting room? Meeting friends for drinks, making dinners for two; sharing showers and sheets with freckled legs and thin lips and bright eyes.
And I think back to those nights when I was sneaking out of my parents house, meeting girls in corn fields or on trampolines, my heart pounding out my chest; The nights I stumbled stupidly into love, locked eyes and let the weight of silence press me into it. And it makes me realize that growth is not an exclusive, linear thing. You don’t grow out of one person into another. And you shouldn’t try to.
Growth is staring at yourself in the mirror and recognizing the best things about yourself and refining them while still maintaining the parts of yourself that have always made you, well, you. The idea that every failed romance and every bad choice results in some ultimate destination is idealistic, sure, but it strikes me all of a sudden. The best parts of myself are the ones I have found in the worst of situations.
So I am unafraid to take chances, break routines and hearts and ready to simply give way to the tug of fate with my fingers crossed, my eyes open.
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| I remember the two of us at the end of last summer, sitting on the roof of my building, looking up at the sky. Thirteen stories up, two empty bottles of wine between us, watching planes trace their way to the runway south of the city. Watching the chaotic, aerial choreography that allows people from all over the world end up in one place,safe on the ground. It makes me wonder.Are our lives anything more than the product of momentum and trajectory? Because sometimes I can see my life so clearly stretched out in front of me, like a flight plan or turnpike map. And the connections amaze me. How one decision leads to the next; how one spark ignites the rest. The way that roof leads to this bed and what that means for the next few months. But then again, every time I’ve tried to map out the destination, it ends up changing. Mostly I think we get to decide what we want. Things will happen, yes, both good and bad, and they will mold our hearts and shape our souls. But mostly, those things are decisions.
I always thought I was someone I had to find. But what I’m learning is that the self is not something found, it is something created.So maybe I am on a path,thirty-thousand feet in the air, circling some air traffic control tower,waiting for my turn to put out the landing gear. Or maybe I’m tumbling toward the ground with no wings and no parachute. Either way, I finally have recognized myself. And that makes me feel like wherever the destination, it’ll be right. | | |
| And so I come again to this familiar lump in my throat; this familiar swelling of ache and self-infliction. I come again to the part where I remember each and every word I said, reciting them all backwards and forwards, like they exist somewhere other than where I left them. I come again to the back room in your house where we whispered in the dark. I always walk there in my sleep. I always talk to you in my sleep. I get a little impatient with God. Because I know that this stupid boy makes stupid decisions for some possible, eventual good and writes them out with bleary-eyed faith. I know that I keep making these phone calls that will change my life because I’m supposed to and because I can’t shake this feeling. I’m just getting tired of learning and relearning how to smile again. I don’t know what else I can say. Is this love? Are you happy now? Are we? Do we ever know? And I just keep wondering when things become definite. Because the words are coming easier, the feelings are coming strongly, but I can never make that leap. I can never force myself into that pivotal moment when I throw away my past and ignore what the future might hold, residing simply in the blind point between the two that is right now. Maybe I don’t believe in fate. Maybe I like to make up my own mind about me and you. But I think life tells me otherwise. I think that I feel this ache and write these words for reasons beyond what either one of us can understand. And I thinkhope they come at exactly the right time. Because there is no time for this right now; because there is no space to drive out to Montezuma and I don’t have the voice for screaming at the sky. Not right now, anyways. I need to breathe. Yeah. I need to do that. I need to wipe the bleary-eyed madness out of my eyes for a few more hours and really just concentrate. I think I can do that. | | |
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