I went for a number of years not writing to you here, spent years on the road apart, did my best to make distance between you and me and yet all I did, as the years and miles passed, was to bring you closer to me than you've ever been before.
Certainly, I can keep up with you thanks to social media, and yes, I break that vow of silence by dropping messages here and there onto your account, but I never push anything. I never declare anything, never do anything to be considered a pest. But I do reach out, let you know that I am here, that you are there, and that is that. Nothing much more can be done than that.
But our children grow and the life that we wished for is, or may, be a lot different than the one we envisioned for ourselves back then. For instance, here I am on a Sunday morning, jazz playing in the background, grains and fruit soaking, the day ahead of me. A walk is coming up, most certainly. Housework, oh yeah. Then I will settle down into cooking and messing about as I am solo and have no one to tell me what to do with the day or inversely, no one to share it with. I am not lonely, but I do miss folks. And it goes without saying, I do miss you.
Years ago, when I was on the coast running a branch library, I set aside in a manila envelope that I stuffed with local travel items, tourist brochures, that I wished to send along to you. I never did as I was restricted from doing so, but more, I was distracted by my thoughts and actions. I brought someone into my life and immediately did my best to resurrect our lives, our pastimes, our emotive, day to day, kind of well being, with her. But instead it turned into something else entirely. My emotional commitment to that relationship helped to make it palatable, emotional commitment something that I need to do in order to help that relationship find its way to love. But that love, whatever good it did to me, was always reflective of and in honor of, the kind of love we shared. It did its best to achieve that level of shared joy but was never ever really able to get there. She wasn't you, my dear, and no matter how how hard I tried, board games, book clubs and cooking via cookbook recipes was not going to bring about a relationship like the one we shared together.
Years into that go round I landed in Colorado, right down the way from where you grew up. I walked those streets, saw your home, enjoyed the little downtown where your pop had his shop. I never felt closer to you than I did there in Colorado, not since the day we parted n Port Orchard. Loveland, Colorado was for me the best of you. I finally got you, saw you, saw how and where your values came about and felt the sense of joy, life and familiar love that you always embraced. I got your stories, saw where your people landed and where you came from, where YOU, the wonderful woman that I loved so dearly, came from. I got you and in doing that, better understood us, understood the whys and must be's of our journey.
So, here I am, in Southern Oregon, mere miles down the road from you, but, for all the good it does me, you might as well be on the other side of the moon. But I am good with that. The years have served me well, have taught me much about life, about patience and reserve, about myself, and has had me truly get, learn a lot about who we were and what our relationship was all about. I appreciate you more than I every did before, girlfriend. You, no matter what you had to do in order to survive, to keep the peace, to maintain the status quo, you are still and will always be my favorite. In the here and now I can love you without measure and with a high degree of peace, knowing that this flame that still burns steady and bright in my heart, is a slow and warm kind of love, not the hot destructive thing it was when I had no idea what love, this kind of love, meant.
What kind, you might ask? The kind of love two friends experience when they are wrenched apart. Nothing more, nothing less.
Love,
Your WHMB
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