Sharing Alone

The air was perfect, not really warm and not really cold. Just cool enough to be pleasant while doing 70 mph with the windows open. All without having the slightest hint of the dreadful season of fall on the breeze.

Over to the west, the sunset fought the encroaching clouds for control of the evening sky. The sunset pulled out a vast array of colors as it tried to penetrate the thickening layers of churning darkness that eventually overcame it.

The music that filled the car was deafening, and yet somehow comforting. Even though no one else could hear it at that speed, the auditory pulses coming from the speakers were a rebellious soundtrack to a life that has always gone against “the way things are.”

Somehow those few moments of my life were being lived in defiance of every dark cloud, every bitter thought, and every chain-linked tendril of depression that’s ever bound my soul. My mind was blank. All cares were gone. The serenity of that sliver of time was as refreshing to my soul as the wind coming through the car was to my body.

For some people, happiness and contentment are a way of life. For people like me, it’s like finding an open fire hydrant in the middle of a searing desert. It’s a rare and sometimes lifesaving thing.

I tried to hold on to it. I didn’t want it to stop. I was a prisoner who had found himself outside the grasp of his pursing captors and didn’t want to go back. Yet one lone thought appeared in my mind and stuck like a bug on flypaper.

“I wish I had someone to share this with.”

That thought acted like a giant set of hands, shaking me awake from a dream that I had no intention of waking up from. That thought produced an ache inside me that I haven’t felt in a long time. Although I’m sure it will be gone in the morning, since sleep tends to re-set my psyche, for the time being I wish I wasn’t alone.

*
“We woke up to the sound of pouring rain
The wind would whisper and I’d think of you
And all the tears you cried that called my name
And when you needed me I came through
*
Remember yesterday
Walking hand-in-hand
Love-letters in the sand
I remember you.
*
Skid Row