Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Surprising Reminders

It may happen subtly. You won't be expecting it as you sip a beer you've never had before and think about what you'll do tomorrow - convinced this whole thing is simply friends gathering and that's all it'll ever be.

You won't be entirely wrong.

On a random night you'll take a drive, trusting the safety within the four doors because that's what you do - you trust without asking questions - and assume something regrettable will happen and then you'll get over it.

You will be wrong about that.

You'll spend nights, trying to fall asleep - fitful in your dance with the sheets because they're not cool enough to your skin - and you'll wonder just when you became an adult who actively made decisions instead of allowing things to happen. You've spent much of your time thinking about how much you long for things to happen organically and just when you stopped talking about it your life got to be about it.

Organic happenings. Who knew such a thing still existed.

In the age of internet dating and paying an uber to deliver your dinner for you, you can forget that sometimes, right outside your door, there are actual breathing beings who enjoy interaction apart from a keyboard that autocorrects so you sound smoother than you actually are.

In the age of internet dating and paying an uber to deliver your dinner, you'll step outside your door and meet someone you've "known" for a while now -- and you'll find you actually enjoy them, even in the midst of making a fool of yourself, allowing your tongue to get twisted and trip over your own words.

Who ever really liked eloquence anyway?

The realization that you had something to learn from an arrangement that was jokingly deemed a "contract" will hit you only after flames have taken over those hard and fast lines you insisted on drawing.

You'll close the door, deadbolt it for good measure, and sit on your couch before you realize how freeing honesty can be. You'll lay your head down on that colorful pillow you still admire after owning for two years and realize that some things have to end because there wasn't much of a beginning in the first place. And you will feel mostly okay about all of it.

Because at some point in this whole adulthood thing, you are beginning to learn that true friends don't dress the way they used to in high school. That sometimes, heavy eye rolls and inappropriate jokes can bind two people before anything deep is discussed.

You'll consider what has transpired these last months - in the midst of your international travel and figuring out how to creatively contribute to a global organization, you ended up finding a friend who taught you things you didn't think you needed to learn.

In the middle of you not accepting compliments and letting people now how long you go without washing your hair,  you started to consider that here might actually be something worth sticking around for.

Who knew this person could teach you that?

You flirt with crying over something that feels lost, but was never found in the first place. Then you'll pull your hair up and sit before the keys and pound out something only mildly comprehendible.

Here's the thing -- I don't know that anyone else needs to get it but you. And you finally do.

You are okay.

You consider that you always assumed these lessons would be learned in some sweeping love story. Maybe you always hoped for it to be that way, anyway. But you'll be wrong.

In the unexpected places - in the middle of ordinary conversations about books and religion and cracking a mildly inappropriate joke, you'll come to realize that those fairy tales were bullshit and Disney lies a lot.

Ain't no prince charming on a horse going to save anyone or restore any broken pieces of a heart you should've been wise enough to protect to begin with.

It'll happen without you even realizing it. They'll come in and surprise you with their intellect and charm and their incredible wisdom. They'll come in and you'll be convinced it'll be the way it's always been.

Only you'll both look each other in the eye and recognize there was something worth saving and so you cut shit out to be healthier for yourselves, not each other.

You'll be spending all your time waiting for someone to ride in looking to rescue when all you needed to realize is you were a wildfire that just needed some water and someone to remind you to chill.

There's no need to burn alive, dear.


2 comments:

  1. I just found an old letter of yours and was holding it when I found this post. Be happy, love. Don't wait for somebody else to make it so. I love you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. oh, that's funny! I love you, too!

    ReplyDelete