Choices

Sometimes you have to make a choice between your past and your future. And while it's always hard to let go of what you had and what may have once filled you with joy, I think it's probably worse to wake up one day and realize you've been sitting still, alone, while the world moved on. Here's to moving forward, even if you don't always know where you're going.

Now

I feel like an afterthought to you.

Do You Remember:

Now at night, it's quiet. Now again I go home on my own, without the barely contained excitement of knowing I'll see you soon. Now all I have is all these intensely colored memories we made together, and then abruptly stopped making. They won't leave me alone, or let me sleep. They hit me unexpectedly, when I'm walking across McCarren Park, when I pass by BAM or cross Atlantic Avenue, when I get into my car and shut the door. Any little action can bring back a surge of emotion as I remember a look, a brief touch, your smile, your hair over your eyes. I remember all these things so vividly. Do you think about them? Do they take you by surprise? Or have you put them all away, compartmentalized them somewhere so you can focus now on your more distant memories of someone else? Here is what I have. Here are some of the things that take my breath away.

That first kiss, in a bar over a second bourbon barrel-aged ale, when I came back from the bathroom, opened my mouth to continue a thought, and found your hand on my face and your lips on mine.

The anticipation of seeing one another for the second time, after the first time we had seen each other in a year.

The time you unexpectedly enjoyed "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," lying in the grass beneath the Williamsburg bridge and the night sky when we didn't want to get up, didn't want to stop kissing, didn't want to let go.

The time wandering in lower Manhattan when I convinced you I could give you a piggyback ride, and I did (maybe a whole five steps), and then I almost ripped my dress when I tried to hop on your back for a ride. The side-splitting laughter as we stumbled down the sidewalk after our friends.

The first day at Rockaway where we spent time swimming and then laying in the sand, skin to skin, just staring at one another, smiling, feeling warm and like summer wouldn't end.

The windows-down drive back from Rockaway the second time, where after surfing and stuffing ourselves on tacos we noticed the sky over the water and the city, fruitlessly tried to snap pictures while moving, couldn't stop exclaiming about the colors in that cloudless dusk sky, about the city skyline, about the placement of the crescent moon over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, about the perfect stars peering out through indigo, couldn't stop smiling, or singing to Counting Crows, or touching each other, feeling as if our hearts might explode from pure, unadulterated joy at living and being there together at that moment.

The way we looked at each other late at night from adjacent pillows. The way that we smiled at each other first thing in the morning and said "I like waking up next to you."

The time we assembled your bed together and had to take the absurd step of filing metal with screws to make larger holes, and after a few hours finally got to throw the mattress on and give it a whirl while listening to the Flaming Lips.

The way I never wanted you to go home.

The taxi cab ride to Greenpoint back from a friend's shiny new Midtown whiskey bar, when the cab driver, apparently aghast at what he might witness, sternly exclaimed "Sir! Sir, you must sit back and put your seat belt on!" The way we sheepishly and impishly giggled the whole way home then ran up the stairs to lose ourselves again.

The way you said "This is crazy. It's not supposed to be like this the first time," and "This is crazy, the way I feel about you." The way it was crazy and didn't seem crazy at all.

The way we couldn't keep our hands off one another.

The way we dreamed out loud together. Couldn't stop planning things. Couldn't stop feeling excited.

The drive to Washington, D.C. where we talked and sang the whole way to my old CD collection and ate greasy Popeye's from a rest stop, and upon arrival when we spent the nights in your parents' second bedroom, trying to be quiet and to act innocent. The way I made you laugh when I said I had bad news and good news. 

The way I thought "This is what I want." The way you acted like you never wanted anything else.

The weekend I was away in San Francisco and you wanted to see what I was seeing, and asked for pictures, and said we should go there together, and casually talked of buying a house, like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

The weekend on the Jersey Shore and the night in the tent on the beach where I almost cried because I wasn't sure I'd ever felt that close another person, or whether I would again.

The way you'd surprise me with periodic texts that said "I can't wait to kiss your face" or "I was thinking about you. (about what?) About the way your face looked on our walk on the beach," or just "I miss you."

The way you'd tell me I was beautiful. The way I couldn't stop looking at you.

The night in Connecticut with beer and home cooked food and gin and strip poker and the pounding rain on the tin roof, which was exactly what I wanted. The last time I felt unbelievably close to you, and I'm positive you felt close to me again too. The time that gave me hope, which started to leave me at 4 am, when I woke up in a panic, dreaming about exactly what would happen a few hours later on the porch overlooking the lake.

I feel raw. I am sure that you felt as close to me as I did to you, because I felt it the second your feelings started to change. I wish I knew how you could just turn it off, change your mind. I wish I could do the same. Because all these beautiful memories won't leave me alone. And all I (still) want is time to make more.

I hope that you remember all these moments, all the tiny details, too. I wish I knew if they made you feel anything for what we had - could have had - had you continued to let me in to try to understand you, and try to help work through the past to potentially move forward together.

But in retrospect, I suppose the time we sat and listened to "Anna Begins" in my parked car under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway was prescient. You weren't ready for this sort of thing. Now I wish I hadn't been.

When It Begins to Crack

"Is everything ok?"

"Yes. Is it ok with you?" 

"Yeah, fine." 

"Your eyes don't look fine." 

"Well, it's just that this week, I feel like something changed. And I've been trying to tell myself it's nothing, but..."

Pause. I start to feel it, ever so slightly. A tiny crack.

"Yeah. I guess it's just everything has been happening so fast that this week everything started to catch up with me. And I guess I needed to catch my breath. So that is probably what you were feeling."

"OK." Don't fall apart.

"But it doesn't mean I don't want to see you anymore." 

Breathe. "I mean, should we look into not going to Connecticut when we get back then? It's going to be tough timing anyway. And maybe I should just look into whether I can cancel and get my money back." Talking about finances feels less personal. It's better that way.

"No, I want to go. Do you?"

"Yeah."

...

"Just...I need you to talk to me. I don't want to be blindsided. I need to know if things are changing."

"OK."

And then we dance around it some more. I tell him to have fun, he says Portland won't be a fun trip, and I remind him that France will be. He says "oh yeah." It sounds like he didn't quite remember that he won't see me when he gets back from Portland because I'll be in Georgia. He asks if we can keep talking. I say yes. I don't know what any of this means. I think I asked him if we should take a break and he said no, but I don't really remember. He kisses me goodbye. I give him a hard hug. It doesn't feel like he's hugging me back because he wants to, but rather because he should. 

I don't know what any of this means.

Late Nights

Some nights you find yourself standing alone in a tee shirt in the middle of a giant luxury hotel room listening to amazing, soul-wrenching music, yet feeling small and alone.

You got yourself here. You got yourself into the life of perks and business miles. You worked your ass off, being smarter than your job calls for, going above and beyond. But you look in the mirror and see this tiny person with so much dark, messy hair, and you still feel like a little kid.

I'm not sure when that ends. Do you need someone to validate your adulthood when you're a seven-course cocktail tasting menu in, or do you ever feel like you are a grown up? After a four hour conversation with one of your good college friends about life and travel and human depravity and prostitution and cannibalism and reproduction and the direction of your own lives, do you go back to your king-sized bed with surplus pillows and feel more connected, or more isolated?

I have no answers. I'm asking these questions to myself, listening to songs for people who might drink too much on repeat. Anyone want to talk?