It’s been so long, I should be used this
by now.
Loneliness that keeps coming back around.*
Sometimes people find love very far apart. They meet in a moment - in time, in space, in life. For whatever reason, be it fate or destiny or stubbornness, the connection stays.
One of my very best childhood friends met a beautiful boy. He lived thousands of miles away, mere feet it seemed, from the Great White North. She shone under a Texas sun. But there was a current between their fingertips; their hands reached for each other beyond distance.
For over a year there were phone calls and three-day weekends. Thousands of emails and letters. Confessions of love. Talk of a future, finally together.
I know just what I need - that’s you and
in a hurry.
If I got on the road right now, I’d see you at 4:30.
But the road blocks, as expected, appeared. He moved to the Windy City, found a job he loved; she got accepted to graduate school in the Northeast.
Nothing will change, she said. We’ll just keep going as we have been. If we’re meant to be together, someday we will be.
But someday is at least two years away. How can she love him from so far away? How can they stay together so far apart? Is it the quiet certainty that comes with love? That comes with knowing you’d rather live apart than live without?
Does our fast-paced society make us believe we can maintain true, lasting relationships over electronics and through post masters? Are we crazy?
But I see success stories everywhere I turn. Amazing couples moving towards each other, or somewhere completely new, hand in hand. The connection no longer tenuous over distance, but on fire in a home they've built together.
No more lonely nights of weepy phone calls. No more calendar countdowns.
Wheels on ground, I won’t slow down. I’ll see you, 4:30.
I’m not quite sure what love is. I don’t really know what it feels like, smells like, looks like.
Is it not being able to stop smiling? Is it feeling like no one else could possibly be this lucky? Is it feeling safe, warm and cared for? Even if you’re thousands of miles apart and the future is uncertain?
Does the love you feel when you’re together carry you beyond into the times apart?
And when I think about it, it’s all white. All nothing. It’s just empty space. Empty space in my head and in my heart.
I don’t need a man. I don't need to be filled up. In fact, sometimes I feel like I have to get some of it out. Push it away and out and into the empty spaces around me. Put part of me into the air outside myself.
And CosmoGirl! is telling 17 year olds how to find their soulmates. Who believes in that Hallmark creation? I do, I guess. And I hate that I look for something that might not even exist. It creates pressure and an ideal that perhaps no one can meet. And that’s unfair to everyone, especially to me.
And CosmoGirl! tells me that there will be a connection, just like, "this bond" and stuff. And that he and I should be on the same page, and that superficial stuff shouldn’t matter, and that he should teach me something. That’s how I’ll know. That’s how I’ll recognize my soulmate.
And it all applies. There’s a connection there that nothing could stop, and I couldn’t ignore, no matter how badly I wanted to. And it’s only been 28 seconds, but it feels like a lifetime.
I want to find the One, and I don’t want to waste time on anyone else. I want to close my eyes and see us at 40 and 50 and 86. But I can’t see that far. I can’t see beyond the next visit, the next phone call. I can’t see beyond tomorrow.
And what if I'm looking for something that doesn't even exist? I have yet to consider that. It makes it too complicated.
If someone gave me a telescope and told me to peer into my future, I’d like to think I wouldn’t. I'd like to think that I’d cherish the unknown that waits around the corner, and that I wouldn’t want to ruin my future's surprise. But I snooped for Christmas presents. I read the last page in a book. Clearly, I’d look. I’d grab the destisnal instrument and look for all it was worth.
And what if what I saw is not like I imagine, like I hope, like I dream? Would that cancel the love? Would that make whatever comes unnecessary and pointless?
Is every lesson learned a lesson learned for a reason?
Now they're saying, whoever they may be, that more than half of all marriages end in divorce. 60% people! Sixty per cent.
How can this be? Why even get married? Surely no one starts out thinking they’ll end. Is it because they weren’t really in love? Is it because they missed their soulmate?
What does that even mean? And really, does love have anything to do with a good marriage? Isn’t it more about respect, good communication and friendship? I know the passion goes away. I know infatuation fades, or that it at least ebbs and flows.
Can I ask anymore questions? Am I really this mixed up?
Maybe the white space is the answer. Maybe I'm trying to color on bare walls, when really, their emptiness is Truth.
And now I'm simply getting metaphoric and stupid.
And asking questions no one can answer.
* Lyrics from Four Thirty by Sara Evans
The notify is wondering what I'm talking about too.