…and the truth was...

I’ll be damned if I can forget it even though I suppose I should have a long, long time ago. And I’d be lying to myself and everyone else if I told you I could or for that matter even would want to. Why in hell would you want to forget ever having seen an angel? Why would you ever want to forget falling in love with that angel? And why for God’s sake would you ever want to forget that you know that angel loves you?
No you don’t forget those sorts of things even though it can find you cursing the universe and all that is for how it is and even worse for why it is.
But sometimes forgetting is the most important part of claiming, or in some cases reclaiming, your sanity.

There she was that night, sitting so close that I could almost touch her and the truth was that touching her, holding her, feeling her next to me was all I wanted. The years between the first time I'd seen her and this night were as nothing but a mist. There was no amount of time, no distance, no counting of days, weeks, months or years that separated that first time from this moment. The effect I felt within my being this night was nothing less than the shivering of my soul the same as I’d felt the first time I’d looked out into her eyes from that stage I’d been standing on one evening years before. This night once again she simply drew me to her as no one had ever done before. I had felt that feeling only once before and when I had she was there and no one will ever convince me of any other explanation than that she was the reason. And because of her once again on this night my soul had shivered.

I was in love, I was married and neither had anything what so ever to do with the other.

Like it or not there are rules in living life and getting by the best you can from day to day without finding yourself on the receiving end of someone’s anger and large bore hand gun. One of those rules is that you don’t mess with what is not yours. When it comes to feelings and emotions for another everything about all of it can become problematic at best and downright impossible at worst. If you’re fortunate the moment comes and goes with few if any repercussions.
If there’s one thing I’ve never been in all my life it is lucky or fortunate.
In those first meetings I knew I wanted to somehow tell her to wait, to wait if only a little while but I doubt she would have or perhaps could have. If there is such a thing as fate it was pushing us both forward, toward each other and away all in a way that neither or us understood or perhaps more accurately recognized in those early moments. For both of us, as time would reveal, the problem was that I knew that I was married but likely wouldn’t be for all that much longer. I couldn’t really let that fact be known mostly because I had a persona to keep in place for all the world to see. Had she known the truth that I was totally unwilling to reveal to anyone things might very likely have turned out far differently for both of us. And for both of us that holding back by me would be a lesson hard learned when it comes to things such as being honest, open and free with feelings, thoughts and self.

She got married and I got divorced. I suspect her wedding was a bit lovelier than my coming home one Sunday afternoon to find it absent a wife and two daughters. The woman I had once stood before God and others and promised to be true to for all of time had left behind the dog only, I suspect, because she couldn’t add him into the menagerie she had sought sanctuary in. And no it wasn’t that I hadn’t seen it coming, I had, but my timing had been way off on all of it. Then again that was my thinking on everything and how it was and of course as usual I’d not thought to look at the whole picture and realize there were two of us driving. She’d decided to take an off ramp I hadn’t seen coming and all the while I’d been thinking there were miles and miles to go or at least enough miles until our daughter graduated high school. She would never know that there had been a part of me that hoped we’d find some middle ground in all of it though the likelihood of that coming to pass, I’d always known, was remote at best.
Somehow, every now and then, that other woman would show up in my world. I’d known her when she wasn’t married and never known her name. Now I saw her time and time again and knew her name all too well. It was her married name that created the space between us because of rules we both believed in and thus trusted to be good, right, proper and worth following in our lives. On the oft chance our eyes would meet we would pause only for a moment and then look to other things or other eyes. None of those over long looks of longing and passion but rather the glances that simply said we knew a secret that no one but we two could know.

And so there she was once again that night as I stood in front of a bunch of people I was expected to entertain for an hour or so. There she was sitting so close that I could almost touch her and the truth was that touching her, holding her, feeling her next to me was all I wanted. There I was wanting only to sing to her, to be with her and for both of us to be somewhere other than where we were right now. The truth was that it would have been a lot easier if she was still back there in the town she’d moved to; far enough away that I couldn’t just jump in my truck and find my way to her any time I wanted to. No, it would have been better if she were still back where she’d come from and then I’d be thinking my thoughts and in the end all my plans and schemes and dreams would come true and no one would get angry, no one would get hurt and everyone would have what and who they wanted.
I couldn’t look at her even though I tried more than once. I’d pass my gaze over her and I would know each and every time that her eyes had not left me. It’s funny how there are those who can see the things you choose not to see at times. A few days later someone would ask me about the woman sitting right there in front of me that evening and in my answer I would lie only because the truth was more than I am willing to admit even to myself most every waking moment of my day. I would tell the person asking the question that she is just a friend.
“No,” she said to my answer, “she’s more than just a friend; I saw how she looked at you.”

There are rules in living that for the most part when followed help one to navigate the daily flow of life in a rather uncomplicated sort of way. When you follow those rules, mostly written but some simply understood, you tend to find the river will flow peacefully though there will likely be a few rapids to deal with, a few moments that will test who you might truly be and whether or not you believe the things you claim to believe. For the most part when tempted you will likely walk away no matter how much you wished you had the courage to simply tell yourself that no matter the risk or cost involved the journey through the rapids ahead are worth it. That wondrous moment of touching something more of you inside yourself and the sheer joy of simply being unable to deny that in this moment you are once again alive, participating in your own life and feeling the things that so many others never feel. You step away from the edge because to take the step off may lead to falling into the abyss and never finding a way back out.

I went to bed alone that night not knowing for certain whether it was the only option I had. In the darkness of the night I didn’t feel all that proud of myself for having hugged her, picked up my guitar and walked away. I’d done what others said was expected of not only her but myself as well. The sting of someone else not having followed those expectations years before had left an unhealed scar within my soul and I’d be damned if I’d be a willing participant in such a thing no matter what I truly wanted.
In the emptiness and the stillness of my night I could still see her sitting there in that chair with legs tucked up beneath her and that beautiful hair flowing down around her face and on to her shoulders. I could hear the sound of her voice and I could feel the emotions that touched the deepest parts of my being when our eyes would meet. I lay there cursing myself for being the coward I am and not having stepped off that ledge, not slid closer to her, not reached out to take her hand, pulled her close and for once show her what I’d always only told her, that I love her.
I had walked away that evening doing what I believed others would want me to do; doing what I was certain others would have expected of me. I walked away that evening believing because of it I would hold my head higher and think better of myself. And as I lay there I knew it was all a lie.

… and the truth was that touching her, holding her, feeling her next to me was all I wanted.