One night before sleep during the fourth year Justin and I were dating, I found a post-it note stuck to the wall against my side of the bed. It simply read "I love you!" I took it with me in the morning and used it as a bookmark for the next month or so. A small gesture, yes, but a gesture so sweet and perfect in its simplicity that I can still recall the image of black Sharpie against pale yellow four years later when most of my other memories from that time have slipped away.
In the end, when a relationship runs its course, what do we remember and what do we forget? What becomes Stories Worth Telling and what gets pushed away and hidden until finally forgotten? There's not many more specifics I can share about my five years (!) spent with Justin. I remember the way it felt when my bare feet sunk into Vancouver sand and I looked over and saw a flash of excitement cross his face and I remember thinking the west coast had never seemed more perfect until that moment.
The small details are the easiest to let fall away, yet they are the ones I'm left searching for in old journals and photos and letters. Instead, the untangling that follows the end remains the clearest in my mind. I remember the last real time I saw Justin and I remember wondering if that would be the last time I'd see him and I remember not being able to answer that question so I looked the other way instead.
The happiness is a blur, but the loss remains clear. And this is scary. This is scary because shouldn't it be the other way around and you always think it will be the other way around but it never is. What's even scarier is the fact that you know this all but you still risk it time and time again. Because you love the idea of love and you love love and you love being in love and you love those perfect moments that you manage to remember even four years later.
This is what the sky looks like as I lie on my bed and sing "I felt a rush like a rollin' ball of thunder, spinnin' my head around and takin' my body under, what a night" and understand those words and that feeling even though it's well past December 1963 because the sun refuses to hide and my winter jacket will be left at home on Wednesday and a message came when I was beginning to feel my most vulnerable.
The snow in this city is melting into big puddles that fill sidewalks and streets. I know the weather's just being a tease, but I couldn't help but walk with a bounce in my step today as I roamed these melting sidewalks and streets. The sun was so bright and felt so warm that I had to whip out my camera and try to capture the feeling. And I know these photos probably fail to do today justice, but just know I couldn't stop smiling and that New Order never sounded so good coming through my headphones.
Let's go back in time and grow our hair long and stick a flower or two in that hair and wear big pants that sway around our ankles as we walk and flash those two fingers at friends and lovers and strangers.
Today I woke up early (for me) and so it was still relatively early when I left the house, and the sun was shining so bright, and I was listening to Wolf Parade (aren't I always?) and it suddenly felt like spring was just around the corner. I knew we still had (at least) another two months of snow and slush and more snow and more slush and dark afternoons and pink fingers ahead of us, but at that moment those two months felt like a breeze. Because I knew what waited me after those two months: a pale yellow sundress and an expectant patio, a glass of sangria and good conversation, falling asleep under park trees, romping around around around, a possible bike ride or two, slip-on shoes, THIS PORCH, a wombmate's eventual return in August, late nights turning into morning.
I also bought this the other day, and it makes me want to go back to a simpler time full of ducktails and hoop skirts and milkshakes. And because I well realize that this wish is impossible, I will settle for the goal of taking more photographs on my parents' slr so that maybe I too can capture a perfect moment, or two.
Cathartic? A recipe for disaster? However you want to classify it, starting your day by reading old e-mails from past crushes/loves/whatevers surely leads to an interesting morning. For one, you are instantly transported back to a sometimes simpler but often more confusing time. Your heart thumps again remembering the anticipation that came ___ years ago. You still blush at the words that were written, and the way you responded to them. And you realize the feelings you had for that one boy weren't so unique after all. And happy or sad, this realization follows you around like a lightbulb blinking frantically above your head for the rest of your day.
