the space between

these days, i find myself missing you at the drop of a hat.

when i hear a belle and sebastian song, i think of those times you played your guitar and i sang about lisa and chelsea.  dancing and making faces while you bobbed your head and tapped a foot in time.

when i kick off my shoes and walk down the street in bare feet, i think of the way you seem more yourself with naked feet, than when clothed in holey socks or leaky clogs. 

when i sat on my dune before the ocean, i imagined you, with your toes in the sand of quite a different beach, in a small fishing village off the coast of

africa .  i allowed my mind to try its best to wrap itself around that kind of distance.  something so difficult when i can see you in my mind’s eye right before me.  layered thrift store clothes, dark and unkempt hair, smelling of summer and nagchampa.

this morning when a long sleeved shirt was not enough to keep out the cold, i pulled on your sweatshirt.  i grinned to myself.  i grinned and i remembered that you once said you thought i’d worn that sweatshirt more in the past three months than you had in the some odd years you’d owned it. about how maybe, it was now more mine than yours.   i thought about how i should have asked you to wear it again the last time i saw you.  so that when you returned it to me, i could hold on to your scent just a little while longer.  to preserve a physical memory of you to sustain me over the next two months.

 

 

 

 

 a few days ago, i went with my mother to bid a tearful farewell to a dear friend of hers.  she and her family were leaving the next morning to move to

las vegas .  when we returned to our home, my mother immediately released the cool collected exterior she had managed to hold on to for the past hour and a half.  her voice broke.  "i don’t want to do this" she said.  i replied with what seemed appropriate to say, perhaps because i didn’t want to think about it.  i said that it would be ok.  "there is just no one like carol," she said.  i thought about that statement.  i thought about saying goodbye to my best friend, just a month ago.  i was struck to the heart before i could nail down the lid on the box that i’d closed and pushed to some back corner of my mind.  and as i held my mother in my arms, and let her stain my shoulder with her grief, all i could think about was how there was no one like

bryan .  in a few months, when i return to school, i’ll return to katie, to

chelsea , to kevin.  to those people who are so so important to me. to my life.  my livelihood and mental health.  and each so unique.  not one of them is like anyone else i’ve ever known.  and each brings out a different part of me.  i get to have them in my life.  it’s not until i return to school that i believe it will really hit me.  the fact that i won’t be seeing

bryan .  the fact that it may be a long while before i see the part of me that bryan brought to life.