This morning, I thought of you while I walked shoeless in the rain.
It’s been a while since I did that — played in the rain, I should clarify. And never, that I can remember, at sunrise (or what should have been sunrise, had the sun actually come up). I woke up after nearly 24 hours in bed with a migraine, and the storm was just coming in, and I lay there, listening, wondering when it would pass. And it did, blowing through in a matter of minutes, taking with it the power, and I went ahead and stayed awake, thinking I might run some early morning errands, or finish a book… and then I was outside, walking down the block to the park, barefoot, soaking slowly and revelling in it. And I thought of you.
It’s been a while since I thought of anyone like I do you.
The thought has crossed my mind: is it worse to pronounce something dead before it has ever had a chance to start, or to have to kill it after it has had time to blossom? And I don’t think there is a right answer. Both are painful in the end, to one or both. But to me, it’s more cruel to have to wonder what could have been; I’m too much of a dreamer to appreciate what ifs. I try to live my life so that I never again have to ask that question; that being the case, maybe it’s a little more clear why this doesn’t sit with me.
It’s been a while since I saw this kind of potential in someone, in a romantic way.
I see in you someone that I would very much enjoy sharing with, be it faith or music, passion or emotion, sorrow or celebration.
You’re right: I don’t give up easily. I don’t know that I actually give up, come to think of it. I’m stubborn like that. But last year, at the same time that I got divorced, I gave up after 17 years of friendship. There’s more to the story than I’m in the mood to go into, what it boils down to is that I suddenly removed from my life the two people that I was closest to, that I felt comfortable with, that I could share with. And since then, I’ve met a lot of people, from bartenders to designers to CEOS, women and men, my age, younger, older… and no matter how many of them I meet, none of them have inspired me to share.
And you have.
It’s been a while since I’ve had that.
I hate what ifs.