My memory of you

1/19/03

Tonight was probably the last night that I will see you for more than a passing glance out of the corner of my eye.  It seems fitting that I do realize this because in terms of time, I have shared all that I could with you over the course of a two-year span.  Two years ago this January you were a Freshman, someone two years younger than me.  I smile when I think that it was probably a day this week two years ago exactly that I noticed, for the first time, you sitting right in front of me.  I smile to think that to this day, even after dismissing you as a romance, I am still not able to put a finger on what it was or still is that pulled me towards you.  All I can say to myself or to anyone else while talking about the matter is “there’s something about her that just gets to me.”

Even now a piece of me still wishes that circumstances might have turned out differently somehow…undeniably, it is still hard to imagine life without you, even if the role that you play in my life is small and uninvolved.

I tried to make up some analogy for the way that I feel about you, something that could put something so complex and involved into terms that made sense from a distance.  The words never came, but an image did.  I saw a novel.  The cover was faded, the pages had turned yellow with age, but still a well-kept beauty on a high shelf…something that would be read only from time to time, but never removed from its spot on the shelf, it belongs there.

That book is my memory of you; something I could never store away, let alone something I could force myself to through out.

The image continued as the book was opened and the pages began to turn slowly.  Then, at the page that mattered most, the turning stopped and I looked inside.  There was a spot, some sort of blemish, a drop of moisture had been there at one time and had left a mark after it had dried.  The page was wrinkled and in the spot where the parchment had expanded some of the letters had become fuzzy and began to wash away.  And then I understood as the vision came to a close.  I saw a tear fall from somewhere…it landed very close to the spot where the one had fallen some time ago… it all became clear as to what had made the blemish on the page before.

No matter how hard I try the book cannot be stored on a back shelf hidden out of sight, and there is no way that it can be thrown out, it simply remains.  Every time that I open that memory it is inevitable that I will eventually come to the story’s saddest part, the part where we never got started.  Even if I read the story a hundred times, the spots of the former tears remind me once again of life without you.  Whether those pages bring more tears, or the mere memory of you itself , you are still there.  All I can do is smile and say to myself:

“there’s something about her that just gets to me”

Peace and Love Mikey