The Few Preciouse Moments

I'm back in Cali as of last night. I had a good day, full of productivity, a good lunch with a (now) good friend, a reminiscent dinner with an old one, and a late night drink with a really old friend.

I talked to a girl from not so long ago and a girl I'd all but forgotten.

It was her. The her. The one that got away.

I'd forgotten. Or never really paid it any mind. Or something in between that a decade of time clouds, that the Amandas and Laurens obfuscate.

I remember telling Corban years ago, even as he was still sleeping with her, that I thought I'd marry her one day. It was a fleeting moment, when I'd just won my first "real job", when I still drove without a license, and when I tossed the word "love" around in the foolish way that young people do.

I remember not being jealous of my cousin, or of my other friends, the ones that all dated her in turn.

I remember seeing her in intimate places, but not so much for me, and knowing she loved me too, but that we just weren't "there".

I remember being with this girl and that, and she with this guy and that, and...

I don't remember forgetting her.

I always loved her, but I put it in quotes. "love", like a brother, or a friend, or a cousin. "love", like someone who could appreciate her and would always have her back, but would never touch her.

I never did. I wanted to, for sure, but I loved her too much to ever look at her in the way that a young girl responds to. I never saw her as an object to consume, or use, or take, or even have fun with.

I loved her in that way that makes you want to be a better man. And I would have, if she only asked me to.

And tonight was great... reminiscent, nostalgic, yet new and fresh. The shadows of the people we once were, yet very much the grown-ups we have become. And are, at least in my case, trying to reject.

And tonight, I drove home, or, that is, to the good friend's house with whom I'm staying, and I cried.

I cried in the car. I cry now.

I cry for the decade when she wasn't present.

I cry for the person she was, and the present-day me that she doesn't know.

I cry because I love her and I never told her.

I cry because she loves another.

I cry because I believe that, deep down, I always knew.

I cry because I forgot.

And I cry because after eight years, after a month of hiding my excitement, especially and foremost to myself, that I might see her, after thinking that it might not come to fruition, I got to spend a preciouse few 120 minutes with her, and that I don't even really know the woman she has become.

I cry because I see the age on her face, and she on mine, and the hurt and heartbreak we've both endured, and I love her anyway.

I cry because her embrace for me hasn't changed, and it's still the full, open, and completely trusting embrace that we shared half a life ago.

I cry because when her eyes meet mine, it's as if not a day has passed, and she didn't date my cousin, and we both didn't promise our lives to other people, and the last decade was but a brief dream, like clips in a movie trailer, there and gone before our souls touch.

I cry because she still, after all these years has songs that remind me of her, like Name (goo goo), and I don't care (back street) and I wish I was special (radiohead), and she doesn't know. No one knows, until just now.

I cry because, as I drove home, I thought about the now-cliche idea that you meet the girl you're going to marry when you're young, but you don't know it, and then, one day, you look up, and there she's been all along, and you're done. And it's wonderful.

And I stopped crying.

I love her more than my self-pity. I'm not even jealous of her man, nor longing of her attention.

I love you, Presh. I always have, from the first time I met you, when you were all of 14, when those 4 years made such a distinct difference, when Street Fighter was as fun as hanging out with girls, when I hid in closets so we could all tell the truth to our parents, when wine coolers were as evil as heroin, when Sunday morning meant dressing up for church, when painting your ceiling on a Friday night was more fun than anything, and when, no matter how smart I was, no matter my potential, my worth, or my faith, I couldn't spell the "L" word to save my life, and I didn't know how bright, nor how dark, the future would yet be.

It hurts that you were there for so long, and that now, now that I actually am the man I wanted to be, a man who could actually appreciate you, the man you always hoped I would become, I am but a footnote. The special friend you look up when you're in the states for the first time in years, the only male friend that isn't a relative that still gets a phone call... but yet, still a footnote.

And now, I feel like the cliche.

Because I'll always have your back. Whatever you need, wherever you go, no matter how old you one day look, or how far away you might feel, or be, or fall, whatever other man you give your heart or soul to, however more freckles on your face appear, however much your eyes bear the weight of the sorrows you've endured, whatever place you call your home, whatever children you bear, you'll always have sparkles in your eyes to me.

You'll always be beautiful to me.

Goodbye, again, P. I'm sorry I forgot.

I love you.