THIS NEXT PART OF LIFE

I wonder if there was more I should have told you. 

It’s my conundrum. 

Because sometimes things are better left unsaid. But I also know that you and I were so in sync that maybe you already know.

Maybe you already know everything.  

There were times when I wanted to say it all out loud but I’d think to myself, “never mind, I’ll wait till next time” and you’d take one look at me and say, “what?” like you read my mind.

Like I said, we were in sync.

I’d shake my head and we’d go back to doing whatever it is we were doing. 

Maybe it was because I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Or maybe it’s because I relied too heavily on the assurance that there would be a “next time” to say all the things I wanted to say. 

When it was time for us to leave each other we would always say, “I’ll see you soon” which led me to believe that each, “see you soon” would be followed by a, “hello again.”

And then life happened. 

You and I tried to drag our heels as long as possible but it came to a point where we couldn’t put it off much longer. It was time to look at the road maps of our lives. It was time to figure out how to navigate through this next part of life.

We held the maps in our hands and decided to open them at the same time. I thought if anything they should look exactly the same. Maybe one of us took a shortcut and was a few stops ahead but surely we’d end up at the same place. Right? I wonder if at the time you agreed.

Before flipping over the page I started to recall the first night we met. Do you remember it the same way that I do?

We drank beers at the start of one of the first nights of summer as the sun, ever so slowly, morphed into the night sky. We watched as those guys almost killed themselves on those ATVs on the street.

I know they were loud, but I hardly noticed. 

This was a perfect, unplanned, moment. The moment we met. 

Not perfect like, picturesque or free of awkwardness. I know I said some stupid things and I think I asked you to remind me what your name was like five times. I guess it didn’t bother you.

I felt it was perfect because of the timing.

Which is what I’m stuck on.

Because “perfect” doesn’t always mean something went right. It can actually mean something went wrong. A perfect storm.

But right then and there the universe would define this as the perfect moment. It just wasn’t clear which “perfect” it would be.  

Every decision we had made in our lives up until that point led us to this exact moment. The timeline of our lives, one starting a little before the other, with all of its ebbs and flows had somehow brought us here. Face to face.

We were in sync.

I didn’t know what would happen next or what the point of this was. I just knew on a certain level, we might see each other once again.

And we did.

We laughed as we traded stories of our lives. Peeling back the protective layers both of us had built subconsciously over the years. Put in place by sad, awful and painful moments that were now juxtaposed and canceled out by the seemingly safe and wonderful moments happening right now in the present.

Everywhere we went I felt that the conversations around us simmered as if we were the only ones there. I know that sounds cliche but it’s true.

Strangers would come up to us and tell us, “you have a good one, don’t let them go.”

I’ll admit, it wasn’t love at first sight. I’d be surprised if you didn’t feel the same.

We both know there wasn’t a neon sign in the air saying, “pay attention, this is important!”

We definitely know that this wasn’t an, “accidentally on purpose” ploy by our friends for us to meet.

The odds of anyone putting the two of us together were zero to none. 

Heavy on the “none.”

Though we found that the longer they watched us, the more they’d say, “it doesn’t make any sense but for some reason it works.” 

I thought so too. Kind of. 

I’ll admit there was a part of me that wasn’t quite so sure, but I put that on the back-burner and called it a, “tomorrow problem.”

The amount of “tomorrow problems” are really piling up.

Maybe the hesitation I felt was because this was new. It was different in an inexplicable way. I had felt these feelings in bits and pieces before but not in a cornucopia of abundance.  

As I held that map in my hands, the back of my mind started replaying what it was like when I had encountered a fork in the road many years ago. 

Maps help us get to our destination, but offer many different ways of getting there. 

There in front of me were two paths leading in two different directions in life with the same destination. I had to choose one.

The coin toss.

The throw of the dice.

The tipping of the first domino.

The flap of butterfly wings.

The realization that that decision, made years ago, was what led up to this moment. The perfect moment. 

It would seem that this encounter, interlacing the timeline of our lives, meant that infinite possibilities were about to have their moment. 

It was the beginning of an endless series of forevers, born into this world, ready to be played out.

No longer a figment of the imagination, this was the start of the thing that so many have experienced already or were longing to experience.

The transition from fiction into nonfiction occurring in the flesh with a time-stamp memorializing these moments as memories proving this is it.

This was the plan. 

So we thought. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Just as that moment felt like it was unveiling the possibility of a whole lifetime of unforeseen potentials with coincidences we took as “signs” that we were supposed to be together, another moment would show us that wasn’t true. 

We flipped the pages open and quickly saw that wasn’t the plan. 

The “signs” were simply coincidences.

Our friends were trying to be supportive but maybe they were right. It really didn’t make sense.

It seems that my hesitation could no longer be addressed as a tomorrow problem. Tomorrow had finally come and it became blatantly clear that my hesitation was there for this reason. I just didn’t want to admit it.

(To be honest I still don’t want to admit it.)

Because not only did our maps not have the same destination, they also had completely different roads, routes, landscapes and markers. Everything laid out on those pages was completely incompatible. The start and stop times didn’t line up. The beginning and end were divergent. There wasn’t a single commonality  between those pages.

It seems the universe had finally confirmed which “perfect” that moment was.

A perfect storm. 

I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that this is it. This is the part where we let go of each other and learn how to navigate this next part of our lives on our own.

So, here we are. In completely different places. I no longer know where you are.  Our minds were in sync for the longest time and for a while after it seemed that they were still connected. But the signal has been lost for quite some time and I can no longer feel you. 

Now I know I spent too much time relying heavily on the possibility that there would be a “next time.” As it turns out “next times” are not guaranteed. 

Now I know that the things I waited to say or the things I thought were better left unsaid, should have just been laid out on the table. Even if there was a chance that it would have ruined the moment. At least I would know for sure that you knew everything.

…And now I know that every, “see you soon” is not followed by a, “hello again.” 

The “next times” and “see you soons” and “hello agains” have run out.

There simply is no. more. time. 

So…

If somehow, some way, I am given just one more moment to tell you one of any of the things I had planned to tell you, “next time,” then I know exactly which one I’d choose.

This is it.

I’d just choose to say one final, “I love you.” Which I didn’t realize would be so much harder to say than the first “I love you.” Because this, “I love you” is full of different facets. Of small reasons and big reasons, all of which are happy, sad, easy, complicated and bittersweet.

This final, “I love you” has to close out all of the infinite possibilities and endless series of forevers we thought we would have together.

This final, “I love you” is harder to say than the first, “I love you” because… this is the last one.

There is no more time.

There will not be another opportunity.

The, “next times” and the, “see you soons” have run out.

We will never say, “hello again.” At least not in this lifetime.

It’s not part of the plan. 

In this next part of life I’ll see the places we went and have to remind myself that you’re not waiting for me and you are not on your way.

In this next part of life, you’ll be kept alive through the stories I write, the songs I listen to and the memories our friends and I reminisce over.

In this next part of life, you’ll exist only in my memories and I hope we made enough to last a lifetime.

I hope I never forget what it was like to hold your  hand and hear your voice when you read to me as I fell asleep next to you. 

There is no more time. 

There will not be another opportunity.

The “next times” and the, “see you soons” have run out.

So this is it. The final one.

I love you.

(But you already knew that. Didn’t you?)

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cng