Message in a bottle
Thinking about this space where I spent so much time and expended so much mental and emotional energy, I can't help but liken it to something. I wrote an awful lot about a girl here. I was quite taken with her. I fell in love with her, and that love burst forth on these pages, year after year. I am still in love with her, though I know her differently now.
I wrote, not knowing whether she ever saw a word. I believed she did, and that's why I continued to write for so many years. This was my message in a bottle.
With a message in a bottle, we're never sure if it reaches its intended destination, if the one person in the world we want to read it actually does. I never knew. Did she ever feel those things I felt for her? Did she know how much I truly loved her? Did she read once or a hundred times or not at all? Did it make any difference what I said or didn't say? The hours I spent crafting my words, did it change anything? Did it make her bad days more tolerable? Were my words still on her mind as she fell asleep? Did she wake and see if I had written about her in the night? I think I know the answer, but, truly, I will never know. All I know is I loved and loved with everything I had.
Writing like that afforded me a measure of protection. I didn't face rejection by writing here as opposed to saying it in another venue. It would have been the same words, for sure, but she would have been the only recipient. Had I simply directed these words to her and her alone, I may have been crushed by rejection. I loved relentlessly and wanted to tell her, but saying it here was safe.
I've gotten to know her in person. Let me say this: my love for has not changed. It is still a burning, undying thing. But, she's now a woman and not a force of nature. She's touchable. She exists in time and space. I don't believe I had her on a pedestal before, but for the sake of brevity, I say that because we all know what that means. Never have I admired a woman more. Seeing her on my level is a treat because she's in many ways just like me. She has some of the same foibles and hopes and dreams.
My love for her went deeper and wider and spread out in the space between us. Before, it was confined to this space. Now it exists in reality. I get to do things for her sometimes, and that is a joy unlike any other. I get to actually make her life better. I get to hold her for a few moments. I look forward to seeing her with a rare anticipation. I'm afraid to know what she thinks of me. I believe I know. It's amazing how much we can fool ourselves to effect a tenuous happiness. We say things to ourselves all the time. A man at a urinal next to me once said, "I tell myself things are okay and then they are. Just keep telling yourself things are okay." A strange place to receive advice, but I always remembered that. So I tell myself what I need to hear, even though I don't know anything. No one knows the future, and we barely know the present. On a message in a bottle, as with this space, there is no return address. We believe, and so it is.
That brings me to the point of this post. Reality intrudes and we really dislike that. We want our pleasant fantasy. I am a good man. I know that. I have faults and failures like anyone else, but, overall, I'm okay. I'm the Mark Wahlberg or Keanu Reeves of my little world. I'm certainly not the best at what I do, but sometimes we are enjoyed because we are familiar and, darn it, we are nice guys. You could do better but probably not much better. You could certainly do worse. We don't shine in any particular way, but we have a general glow and realness that some people get. I just hope she's one of those "some people" who get me.
All those years, I wanted to be in her life, to be close. To love in a palpable way so I could put away this space. To bring my desires into reality. I get to love her now, though in the quietest way. I get to do it for real. In the real world with real consequences. It's the same message in a bottle, but I get to put it quietly out there, almost unnoticeable. I get to love her with actions instead of words. I put my words away so I can hold her and not frighten with the intensity of my feelings. So she could see I'm just a man. A Wahlberg in real time. A man who would just as gladly clean her gutters or mow her lawn as he would hold her and kiss her. I may never get more than this, and that thought is not lost on me. I already count myself as unbelievably lucky. Imagining hand-delivering your message in a bottle.
***
I know, much of what I said on this blog probably looked a lot like this guy. Doing anything outside of your comfort zone can be dangerous. I hope it looked more graceful than that and I'm sure it didn't, but it looked pretty epic from my vantage point.
Thank you to my God Who granted what I desired all those years. I didn't see how it could happen, but it did. I sit here blown away. I'm friends with the girl I most admired in my life, the girl I loved the most. How did I even get here?
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