Time is such a weird thing.
And 18 months is the current manifestation of that peculiarity.
It simultaneously seems like both a lifetime, and the blink of brown eyes crying in an Indiana kitchen. 547 some days. A whisper over 13,000 hours.
But even that isn’t a guarantee. Because I learned a long time ago to never trust the white-coated math.
In a way, I guess it makes sense. Because even our arrival times are imprecise. So why should our departure dates be any different?
Born into broken water, we leave amongst the tears of others. Adhering to some imprecise system. One based on patterns I’m not sure my pickled monkey brain will ever comprehend. Because I can barely be trusted unsupervised with a tube of Super Glue. Let alone with the expansive secrets of the universe.
And it’s a weird conversation to have with someone. Unfamiliar words are utilized. Topics shift into uncomfortable places. Even though their weight is omnipresent. Tapping intrusively into an instinctual commonality.
And we shared the heaviness of that conversation together.
First, in a December field. Just a few days before another Christmas got ticked off. The conversation in which we used that fucking word for the first, and only, time. The word I am not sure I will ever actually commit to the page. Because that would give it weight. And recognition.
It’s stolen enough from us as it stands. So I refuse to make it any more sacrifices.
We have admittedly had that conversation many times since. Sometimes, after fireball runs south on a highway that used to run towards happier places. Other times, over the phone. When the rest of our respective states have already turned in. But neither one of us can sleep.
Hers is about the only call I will ever take without hesitation. Just ask my other friends. And my family. The ones often annoyed at the whole voicemailness of it all. But that violent notification of an incoming conversation triggers my social anxiety to the ducking point. So I selfishly decline for the sake of my own stability.
And I refuse to apologize for preferring the more pointed gentleness of a simple text. Without proper cues, I often get lost in the chat. And it’s easier to blame coming across as an unrepentant asshole on accidentally autocorrected words, than it is to stammer another half-hearted apology.
Even when alone, I still try my best to be engaged with her. Present in the closing paragraphs of her last chapter. Available to her, even in the absence of another shared zip code night.
I’ve sent rambling letters to her box. Silly notes and small trinkets. Even a small collection of slightly pornographic cartoons. Because iconed genitalia generated from a rehabilitated typewriter will always be funny to me. And I know it gently annoys her.
But in a way that’s fun. And makes her smile.
So that typewritten dong doodle was well worth the risk.
Of all of our conversations, the most recent one stands out the most. And sticks hard. Probably because the way her brown eyes, rubbed red, locked on to the grey ones reflecting everything right back.
With a bit of distance, I realize now it was more about the things we didn’t say that night, than it was what was actually said. The story inside the story. The most poignant kind of writing. The style nearly impossible to pull off successfully.
But we knocked that fucker out of the park.
I guess maybe that’s what happens when you’re sitting beside someone who shares a significant part of a common history. And who trusts you enough with the care of her darkest fears.
I don’t believe that I am betraying her confidence by sharing plain, at what normally I would only hint. Foxes, after all, can be rather deceptive in our written gekkerings.
But there comes a time when you just have to write it out loud.
Somewhere within the span of those 13,000 hours lurks what will ultimately prove to be that last conversation. The final words she will ever say; the last words she will ever hear.
It’s so very important to me that we get it right. Because we only get the one shot.
Whatever those words might prove to be, I just hope that they are significant. Or at least, ridiculous. Because like me, she treasures the absurd above the mundane. The ludicrous above the dial tones.
And I know when that inevitable conversation occurs, the world after will forever shift into something far more bland. Because it will become a place where I will only ever get to remember things myself.
Instead of with her.
And that breaks my fucking heart…
