ONE NIGHT

“Tequila shots, really?”

“Really.”

“Are we maybe too old?”

“No! Are you maybe too scared?”

“Scared? Nah, of course not but I need a refresher on the order….”

“Cheers, salt, shoot, lime.”

“Cheers.”

And that was the start of that one night. Well… not exactly the start. There was a handshake and an introduction of sorts and a friend that quickly bailed in pursuit of another and a last call that came too soon and then the question of, “where do we go from here?” And luckily, for both of us, an inexplicable understanding that this wasn’t going to go on for much longer but for whatever time we had left, we would make it last. We would stretch those seconds into minutes into hours, kept warm by the tequila pulsing through our veins while we ran through the streets in the dark of the night like Bonnie and Clyde.

and that’s when I felt it.

My hand which hung freely by my side was pulled and by instinct I went with it as the body attached forged ahead to the next uncharted realm, enkindling something vague but familiar. 

And yet, different. 

Different from the times you and I would stare into the depths of the white ceiling above us as unknowns transformed into habits. Moments that were once a figment of the imagination inspired by likes of John Hughes and Nora Ephrone found themselves slowly fused into the pages of reality, coming to life, carbon date and all to prove, yes this is real and this could be the start of forever. 

At least that’s what I thought. 

While I was mulling over every moment, letting them simmer into the beginning of an endless slow burn, I was blissfully unaware that maybe my "forever" was simply your perishable. Good till the sell by date and not a single day after.

I think about this and the struggle to force these memories to the forefront of my mind becomes harder and I slip back into the reality of the moment becoming aware that the body holding me in the present isn't you, but someone else.

We fall into a rhythm and while it all feels and sounds like something known before, it's just a cover. A reenactment of what happened once before and there's nothing wrong with it. It will just never be the same as the original. 

The excitement of where the night would take us morphs into the stark reality of day and we drift asleep, hoping to awaken with mutual feelings of apathy, no regrets. 

The next morning in the car we swapped stories about family and confirmed facts from the night before because we were too polite to just say the truth out loud, so I'll say it now. None of it matters. That information would not be encoded from short to long term memory. All of it would go straight to the recycle bin, deleted without the need to be recalled. 

What's your name again? How old are you?  Who cares?

It’s not that there are sad feelings about the night before, it’s just that the rhythm and the flow followed the exact same steps that you and I once took and yet it was foreign. There were no butterflies or chemistry or excitement of hope for what the future might bring. The fact that the ending was known before the start of the beginning should have brought forth a sense of comfort. Yet, memories forgotten, memories locked up in a box that was traveling further away found itself washed up to the shore. Tattered, frayed and leaking its contents right in front of my eyes begging for attention. 

Stop it. 

Go away.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye…

The goodbyes started to sound a lot more like deny, deny, deny.

If the truth will set you free, why did it feel like it was tying me to the dock? I was starting to feel like I was the one locked in the box, unable to see the light and trapped with little room to let anything or anyone else in. It was just me and I was starting to suffocate on  my own accord. It was starting to get a little too warm. It was starting to feel like there was less air. It was starting to feel like my heartbeat was overpowering the sensations my body was used to feeling. 

I held the key in my hand. The one that would let me escape, but it came at  price. Nothing in life is free. The thing you give is taken away. And most often the exchange rate isn’t kind. The happiness invested in someone else has departed from your soul. Thoughts shared with another have left your brain. The love you let go of may never return at least not in the same form…

The worst part of it all

The hardest lesson to learn

The most painful pill to swallow

Is the realization that in the end, love might never be enough.

So. Just let it go.

“Go your way, I’ll go mine.

So, if I go for scallops and you go for lobster…

So, all right no contest we’ll order lobster.

For we know we need each other So,

We better call the calling off off.

Let’s call the whole thing off”

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cng