Roads not taken #3...

I was lost through most of my twentieth year, still reeling from the total upheavals of the one prior. Thankfully, I had the dual solaces of music and the road to help ease my heart when the ache grew too great to bear. I would get into the car and drive off into the night, aimless, just following where my intuition led me. That’s how I ended up in Florida, not for the first time. Mostly broke and sleeping out of my car, I was sitting outside the Hard Rock, listening to the music inside, and waylaying my hunger with the scents of the food drifting out across their open air patio. Then I saw her…

Looking up from my tattered notebook, I saw an angel in white cutoffs, standing on the wall upon which I sat, hanging by the sign, posing for a picture. She was the loveliest thing I’d seen in a city known for its tropical beauty, and I was entranced. But there was something more, too…As she laughed with her friend, I felt something, a pull in my heart. I looked down at my notebook, turning to a new page and writing furiously, glancing up every few seconds to be sure she was still there. I wrote her a poem, or, rather, something wrote through me, the words flowing out of me like they rarely had before, describing a girl as lost as I was, but full of hope, strength, love, and beauty. I saw tears fall onto the page as I wrote. 

When I finished, I leapt to my feet, the need to give it to her overwhelming. But…she was gone, lost in the crowd. I sank back down onto the wall, my heart suddenly aching for something I’d never had. I scanned the streets and, if I’m being honest, continued to do so for a few days more, before resigning myself to the loss of her. I tucked her into my heart, in the place where I kept the memories I held most dear, and went back to my life, where I grew, healed, and was broken again.

Years later, I found myself walking through Central Park, still just as aimless, if for different reasons, the same old green Jansport over my shoulder. I was again nursing the loss of a life I’d thought I’d wanted when I looked up and my heart stopped. I saw her there, the girl who’d stolen a part of my heart in Florida with a laugh I could still hear. She was sitting alone on a bench, looking a little sad herself. Mustering my courage, I went to the bench and asked if I could sit down. She looked up at me with soulful brown eyes and nodded, so I did.

I sat there dumbly for a minute or two as she went back to sketching, then took a deep breath, taking from the little hidden pocket I’d sewn into the bottom of my backpack the poem I’d written for her all those years ago. Taking a deep breath, I turned to her, holding it out. She didn’t immediately reach for it, but then I told her the story, the beginning of our story, and how she’d inspired the best poem I’d ever written, and how I’d carried it, never really feeling quite right letting it go, as though I knew I’d see her again and, somehow, here she was. She took it, then, and read it, adding her tears to the remnants of my own from its writing. When she looked up, she told me her name, your name, and reached out, taking my hand.

We watched the sun set in the park, talking and laughing, that beautiful laugh, and, when it was dark, I walked you back to your hotel. You invited me up to your room, and we kept the conversation going until the sun rose over the City, when you fell asleep in my arms for the first time, lying in that golden light. 

In some lives, it takes us awhile to find one another, but we always do, somehow, because this is where we’re meant to be, you and I. Tillsammans. When you asked me, on that terrible night, if I would wait, I didn’t hesitate. Of course I would, I always do, in every world, until you’re safely in my arms, and my heart is in your hands, where it belongs. You are, always, worth the wait. I love you, my sweet girl, and I’ll be right here, now and always.