IT FELT LIKE FOREVER-COMPL -1,155 words
I can't pretend like I can sit here and look at myself straightly in the mirror without wondering about the "could have been" that everyone experiences in the lifetime. Sometimes when the pieces go together in my head now, at a point where it shouldn't bug me, pieces are missing. There are areas that seem unclear, just not there, as if the only way that I can remember the passing time where everything was together, that you found that last piece of blue sky in the puzzle you needed. I felt whole then, if only for a short while, and even when I'm old and the people who might be following in my steps will be at this age, I could tell them about that one "could have been" that stood out from every other one. But my mindset isn't right, because where I'm at right now, I'm happy, or at least I should be. Everything's come together and nothing's falling off the sides.
So to escape back into that idea, it took a while of winding my clock, and spinning of my emotional wheels. You can do it too. A picture, an old album, a place to drive by and get lost in for a moment, all of the memories that you try to shatter to forget because what's happening now is too nice.
I took a trip backwards, and remembered the first feeling of abandonment, and then it all came flooding back.
She and I had a connection, through the Internet. We met in a community online somewhere, and fell for each other's words quickly. Off the cuff comments included ones for a special birthday present, for a week's worth. More than a week beforehand I was already dusting off places inside that I hadn't visited, if only to cling to the idea that I could fall for something for only nine days.
As time started to inch ever closer, the nervous bug came. The ideas that were floating in my head the first time started to turn into big squares that gave you headaches and cramps because it's a family trait. You'd lie awake at night and wonder if it was all going to come true, and knew that the next time your head hit the pillow, you might not be alone in it anymore, and that's all anyone wants.
All I wanted was to paint and frame a picture in the walls of my memory for all time of one short string of minutes and days that would feel like time could play tricks on you. Nervousness takes out all the fun of waiting because as soon as it's there and gone again, the nervousness makes you wonder if it could all stay intact in your brain. That would be the test, to make sure it all went according to your plan.
The day wasn’t as far off as I’d thought. It got there faster than I’d ever expected in that they came in a flying sort of way. It was the few days before it that got slow, but the months leading up zoomed by as if my calendar had a page ripped out and we’d skipped a certain amount of days. Like nothing I was realizing that another human would be spending some glorious days in my room that was less than 12 feet by 12 feet, with a ceiling so low that if you sat up from the bed too fast you might hit your head.
There I was, sitting in the airport. Two friends came with as my ride, and I waited. Flight number? Check. It’s here. So what was I doing here for so long?
It’s strange thinking that I was waiting for someone in an airport and wondering as they’d announced the flight coming in, why 30 minutes later she hadn’t come out yet. And then the passengers started filing out. Every time they opened the door, you could see into the back, and I kept looking for her, over and over again, but still I got nothing.
And then my first sign that she was actually here: A woman in uniform called my name, and as I shakily walked over to her, she asked questions, where I knew her from, what she looks like, when I’d see her, where she was staying. After these questions, I was told again to sit back down and wait.
Not only did it feel like forever, I was almost ready to give up at this point. One big trick, I thought. This was probably just something to string me along to catch me in some freaky elaborate scheme. I was losing patience, and it’s been over two hours now.
And then she walked out. A nervous smile on her face, black hair, a dress and knee-high boots. Just the epitome of someone whose been massively messed up by the current events. Body and bag searching can be tedious to some, but others when it’s regarded as a serious threat, it can be terrible, hence the situation and it’s length. She didn’t seem as fazed though, after a quick hug and a departure from the strangeness.
It got silly after that. The ride home was reminiscent of the feeling you have when you’re two young kids who are partially obsessed with each other, giggling in the backseat of a car and holding hands under luggage so as not to tip off the driver/passenger in the front.
From the first moment into the door, you could feel it. You could just sense the admiration for one another after months and months of getting to know each other in text and voice form, but to see and touch and feel and smell and wake up beside someone now was different. It had this wave of ambient beauty surrounding it, as if time had decided to stop for these days just so that a pair of people could find a quick answer to the long story of love.
We’d wake up in the morning and lie there, just staring back and forth, not saying a word, trying to figure out what the other was thinking, and it would get us nowhere. We’d travel the streets during the day and take pictures of things, wandering around in no specific direction. We’d get out and drink with friends, and then we’d go home with each other and imagine what it’d be like to live like that every day, with a chip of love on our shoulders.
And as the nine days went by, every day was concluded and began with the same thing over and over, that for that time nothing existed in the outside world except the two of us. And whatever feelings came after, whatever heartbreak or unreasonable endings decided to tear us apart, for that time, for those days, they felt like the most blissful forever I’d ever wanted to know.
So to escape back into that idea, it took a while of winding my clock, and spinning of my emotional wheels. You can do it too. A picture, an old album, a place to drive by and get lost in for a moment, all of the memories that you try to shatter to forget because what's happening now is too nice.
I took a trip backwards, and remembered the first feeling of abandonment, and then it all came flooding back.
She and I had a connection, through the Internet. We met in a community online somewhere, and fell for each other's words quickly. Off the cuff comments included ones for a special birthday present, for a week's worth. More than a week beforehand I was already dusting off places inside that I hadn't visited, if only to cling to the idea that I could fall for something for only nine days.
As time started to inch ever closer, the nervous bug came. The ideas that were floating in my head the first time started to turn into big squares that gave you headaches and cramps because it's a family trait. You'd lie awake at night and wonder if it was all going to come true, and knew that the next time your head hit the pillow, you might not be alone in it anymore, and that's all anyone wants.
All I wanted was to paint and frame a picture in the walls of my memory for all time of one short string of minutes and days that would feel like time could play tricks on you. Nervousness takes out all the fun of waiting because as soon as it's there and gone again, the nervousness makes you wonder if it could all stay intact in your brain. That would be the test, to make sure it all went according to your plan.
The day wasn’t as far off as I’d thought. It got there faster than I’d ever expected in that they came in a flying sort of way. It was the few days before it that got slow, but the months leading up zoomed by as if my calendar had a page ripped out and we’d skipped a certain amount of days. Like nothing I was realizing that another human would be spending some glorious days in my room that was less than 12 feet by 12 feet, with a ceiling so low that if you sat up from the bed too fast you might hit your head.
There I was, sitting in the airport. Two friends came with as my ride, and I waited. Flight number? Check. It’s here. So what was I doing here for so long?
It’s strange thinking that I was waiting for someone in an airport and wondering as they’d announced the flight coming in, why 30 minutes later she hadn’t come out yet. And then the passengers started filing out. Every time they opened the door, you could see into the back, and I kept looking for her, over and over again, but still I got nothing.
And then my first sign that she was actually here: A woman in uniform called my name, and as I shakily walked over to her, she asked questions, where I knew her from, what she looks like, when I’d see her, where she was staying. After these questions, I was told again to sit back down and wait.
Not only did it feel like forever, I was almost ready to give up at this point. One big trick, I thought. This was probably just something to string me along to catch me in some freaky elaborate scheme. I was losing patience, and it’s been over two hours now.
And then she walked out. A nervous smile on her face, black hair, a dress and knee-high boots. Just the epitome of someone whose been massively messed up by the current events. Body and bag searching can be tedious to some, but others when it’s regarded as a serious threat, it can be terrible, hence the situation and it’s length. She didn’t seem as fazed though, after a quick hug and a departure from the strangeness.
It got silly after that. The ride home was reminiscent of the feeling you have when you’re two young kids who are partially obsessed with each other, giggling in the backseat of a car and holding hands under luggage so as not to tip off the driver/passenger in the front.
From the first moment into the door, you could feel it. You could just sense the admiration for one another after months and months of getting to know each other in text and voice form, but to see and touch and feel and smell and wake up beside someone now was different. It had this wave of ambient beauty surrounding it, as if time had decided to stop for these days just so that a pair of people could find a quick answer to the long story of love.
We’d wake up in the morning and lie there, just staring back and forth, not saying a word, trying to figure out what the other was thinking, and it would get us nowhere. We’d travel the streets during the day and take pictures of things, wandering around in no specific direction. We’d get out and drink with friends, and then we’d go home with each other and imagine what it’d be like to live like that every day, with a chip of love on our shoulders.
And as the nine days went by, every day was concluded and began with the same thing over and over, that for that time nothing existed in the outside world except the two of us. And whatever feelings came after, whatever heartbreak or unreasonable endings decided to tear us apart, for that time, for those days, they felt like the most blissful forever I’d ever wanted to know.