Blondie playing One Way Or Another inside my head, distracting me from the work that is exhausting me.
Look in the mirror and see an older guy looking back but the twinkle in the eyes is still there.
Wonder if given the chance what other things could be sparked, feeling like I know the answers.
Ready to go deep and see if buried to the hilt provides the expected answers.
The man thought about the best friend you sleep with and remembered a day spooning.
“Where are you? Why aren’t you closer,” she asked.
“If I were any closer I would have to be inside of you.”
“That sounds good to me,” she said.
“Me too.
The man looked in the mirror and thought about how the girl had once described him as the best friend you sleep with.
It was a very pleasant memory and sometimes he enjoyed thinking about it.
Most of the time he pushed it aside as he tried hard to live in the present.
The last time he had really spoken with the girl about reaching out for each other she had turned him down. He had told her he could live with that and though he meant it, he didn’t want to.
It had been a chunk of years since they had last dated but what he remembered most about it was how it felt to him like it kept getting better.
It felt like they had found something that was more than just lust and deeper than just friendship.
Though if you asked him to share his inner thought at that particular moment he would have said he remembers what it feels like to be buried to the hilt inside of her and how it felt like they got lost in each other’s eyes.
He remembered pumping and watching her watch him and thinking he no longer knew where he started and she ended and vice versa.
And then it had gotten cut off and shorn away. None of it had been his choice.
He understood, but he didn’t like it.
The man looked in the mirror and shook his head at what he saw because he looked like hell.
The weight of the recent past had aged him terribly. It was kind of funny because it was common for him to hear he didn’t look his age.
They always pegged him as being five years or so younger than he was but to his critical eye he looked bad.
Sometimes he didn’t care because wondering and worrying about what a teenager might do could grind upon you. He had promised he wasn’t going to hurt himself, but there was a period of time where it was unclear.
Add that to some of the other nonsense he had experienced and he knew he probably had some sort of PTSD. More than a few people had accused him of wearing them out and maybe he had.
Maybe he was too much but he couldn’t worry about that. He knew what and who he was and figured the people that were supposed to be there would be.
If they loved and cared for him they would stick around and if they didn’t they would disappear and he would let them go.
What was hard was accepting that aging had impacted him, not just in looks but in how he could exercise. He was as strong or stronger than he had ever been but his body wouldn’t tolerate things it used to.
There were aches and pains that came with the old way of exercising so he adapted and adjusted but he didn’t like it.
Sometimes he pushed through the pain and left the gym feeling great and sometimes he still felt it two weeks later so he adjusted again.
That made him think of her and how open he had been with her. They had been more honest than he had with anyone.
She had accepted him warts and all and sometimes that was what he missed the most, the feeling of having a real partner. The sense that you could let someone else carry you and not worry about the consequences.
Maybe that was the fundamental issue, he expected and wanted too much.
He hoped to discover the truth behind some of his ideas and dreams. He hoped to have the peace of mind that comes with knowing.
Some might say that placed too much pressure upon everyone but he didn’t believe that to be true.
If it was as his gut believed there wasn’t pressure from expectations. He didn’t doubt they could still spend months together and never tire of each other.
It was circumstances that caused a hiccup and that he understood, but it didn’t mean he accepted them. Especially knowing the first 45 or 50 percent of life was done and that it was possible they were closer to the final third.
So he thought about what hope was and what tragedy was and then placed them in a box called the present to think about later.
“There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now”
Walt Whitman
The man looked at the clock and noted it was almost 10:30 AM and that technically he should be working.
Technically he was on his third or fourth break of the day and given how things were going there was a good chance there would be four or five more of these breaks.
Had someone asked for a reason he would say he had hit a wall and that he was overloaded. Too much personal and too much professional crap all at once.
What he really needed was some downtime and some special attention specific needs but it wasn’t clear if any of those were coming soon.
So he focused on trying to relax and decompress, but it wasn’t easy because the professional side of things kept intruding.
There were 1,938,949 fires to put out and he hadn’t set most of them. He was particularly good at getting into trouble on his own and didn’t want any help doing so.
He told the woman he was interested in some in person wordless communication and waited to see if she would ignore or respond.
Had someone asked what he expected he would say anything was possible. He wouldn’t be surprised if she ignored him, yelled at him or offered to undress him.
She could say she had no ability to do anything because of lack of feelings, bad timing or because a tree in China was cut down.
And she could just as easily tell him that she would have taken his hand and done anything and everything if he had only asked.
That was the joy of women, they could have a logical reason for everything they did or at least they thought it logical.
If she told him she was afraid or where it could lead and whether they would end up addicted to each other he would nod his head.
Might ask if they were ever really not addicted. Ask if maybe it felt different in the between solely because the fire was more of a soft simmer.
Sometimes he was certain of that. Sometimes he was certain that if she let him kiss her and opened up to possibility things would fall back into place.
And sometimes he thought he might be an idiot, but perhaps that was just protection.
Or perhaps not.
The one thing he was most certain of was that they would end up bed together again and the conversation would be had, but how and when was still a mystery.
Hell, he knew her pretty damn well, but in many ways she was still a mystery too. That was kind of exciting in a way.
He opened his arms up and told her to come in and remember who makes her feel both safe and alive.
She smiled, stepped forward and then…
He told the girl don’t love me or by loved by me if you think it provides safety and security.
“Don’t take a chance that maybe that magic that was there is the sort that can withstand the test of time. Don’t risk loving or being loved by a man who you called best friend and soul mate because some risks aren’t worth taking
And that dude, well he is crazy, unhinged and like a freight train when he sets his mind to things. Let him go and he will.”
He looked in the mirror and asked his reflection if he thought she heard him calling through the wires like the Wichita Linemen.
The tired reflection didn’t give him an answer but just repeated his words back to him.
So he walked away and muttered words he had heard before about if it is meant to be it will and if it is not, it won’t.
It sounded ridiculous and maybe it was but experience had proven that crazy ride they were on had a mind of it is own and it wasn’t easy to tell where the wheel would stop.
So he looked up at the ceiling knowing she wasn’t there and told her she ought to kiss him or be kissed by him again and let science prove or disprove it all.
Maybe one day there will be a story in which a song like this plays a central role and maybe there won’t be.
Maybe one day under a starry sky we’ll play this or maybe a slightly longer version and talk about the long and winding road.
Maybe the time of telling a story or two will be filled with the magic that began so many years ago and the moment will fill the gap between the time that was and the time that is.
I can see it happening just as easily as I can see it not happening.
They set up a private blog when they were younger and the love was unbridled and unrestricted.
Back in those days they had planned on both contributing and then it had changed to a place where he wrote and she read.
Periodically she would leave a remark or two.
Sometimes he would read through it and wonder if he ought to look at it like the Constitution but even that bore questions.
Was it a living, breathing document or just a historical record.
Once she had said that time had passed them by and that by the time the next window came he would have no interest because she would be too old.
Sometimes he laughed at that line because the age of being too old hadn’t arrived or so he thought.
They clearly had changed over time but whether for the better or the worst was always subjective and looks were never the measure.
Not for those who fell in love because of words.
Words Left Unwritten 