She took my breath away the moment she walked in the
door. She was so counter to everything I
thought I had known. She challenged me
in ways I thought not possible. I
remember the day I first saw her walk in and the tingling all the way down to
my toes. I clearly see her face all this
time later. I remember the clothes she
was wearing and the way she wore her hair.
I vividly recall the beating in my chest and the quick interaction my
mind played when it told me to sit down and stuff this down. I’d become quite the cynic not only after my
divorce, but as time went on I gradually lost faith in humanity and the
prospects of feeling those things again.
I had become solid in who I had become.
I had regained my self esteem and slowly I regained my steadfast ability
to remain even keeled. I let the anger
and hurt subside and fade away into the sun.
The joy in my life returned and I regained my footing. And then she walked in the door and all bets
were off. Again, I quickly maintained my
composure and swiftly picked my jaw back up off the floor. There was just something about her. The way she moved, the way she laughed. All things noted from a distance and secretly
I found myself hoping she’d come no closer that day. That she was just walking in and walking back
out so that the normalcy I had created could remain.
It was not to
be. She walked back in that door a few
weeks later and shortly thereafter we stood outside in the summer heat
exchanging pleasantries and simply talking.
I knew I was in trouble instantly.
All the tough guy bravado, iron walls, and sheer will that I had
developed, instantly came crashing down that afternoon. I found myself completely enthralled with one
simple conversation. Her eyes pierced my
very soul as we stood in that parking lot and just talked. No expectations and just pure delight in
talking so openly and freely with someone.
As I quietly navigated the way home that day I remember the lump in my
throat and the butterflies in my stomach.
Never had I felt so at peace with someone and yet I had no inkling of
what I had discovered. We would see each
other again, frequently, and always fell right back into the safety and ease of
one another. We exchanged numbers and I
clearly remember fumbling for my phone as she blurted out the digits. Trying desperately to get the sausage fingers
to operate the Iphone’s midget digits.
Still, I maintained my composure and for the first time in so very long
I just felt I had a friend. A comrade in
arms, and a free spirited ally. As time
passed it became so much more evident that she was so much more than these
things. I had never spoken so freely and
felt so unjudged by anyone. She’d
quickly become the friend that we all dream of.
And then she’d become so much more in the blink of an eye.
We would become the consummate
companions. Both from troubled and
broken pasts, and yet both so full of life and hopeful for the future. We evolved daily and while every day wasn’t
perfect, I always found something perfect in every day. When we’d disagree, argue, or need a breather,
I’d embrace the good and bask in the vivid memories we had created. As any couple would likely admit, things are
never perfect all the time, and we both entered this arena with a colored and
tumultuous past, but we always found our way back to center. The natural balance of our lives just gently
guided us back to common ground and mutual understanding that we were imperfect
human beings embracing something far deeper than either had anticipated. The days progressed and the feelings
deepened. The connection grew and we
were wrapped in a continual embrace of learning and growing together. The day I sat across from her and told her that
my “fall” had begun is as clear today as the first day we met. The fear coursed through my veins and the
uncontrollable, pulsating, nausea nearly derailed the words I needed to
utter. One of the most difficult things
I had ever done had been to tell her how much she meant to me and how ingrained
she had become into my very soul. We had
grown into one another. We seemed to
support one another through rain and shine.
We reached for one another’s soul like a sunflower reaching for the sun. The walls were gone, crumbled at my feet, and
the wind was with us. We were never perfect,
but we were a force to be reckoned with.
I had my activities, she had hers.
I still loved, to my very core, the pugilistic approach to dealing with
my past. I still went to the gym and
punched, kicked, tapped, and submitted my way through any arising issues. She clicked into her pedals and twisted the
cranks down country roads with the wind in her face and sunflowers waving in
the wind as she gracefully passed. I
admired her strength and melted with her laughter. I finally felt “good enough”.
The ever present cynic
in me slowly evaporated into the clouds.
Even with our two strong personalities, we found our way through the
maze of life and dating in a dynamic and fluid world. We always allowed space when needed but we
began to evolve in our relationship and soon I found her to be not only my partner
in life but my climbing partner.
She had become the only one I wanted to be tied together with in a world
of vertical puzzles. We had solved so
many of life’s puzzles together through countless glasses of wine, late night
chats, evenings in the kitchen, that it just made sense to share a rope with
her. I had found a place where I could
see the beauty in her not only on the surface, but a place where she would
shine like a jewel bathed in brilliant sunlight. Watching her climb was tantamount to watching
a delicate dance, a struggle with gravity..a metaphor for life. I
discovered that climbing with her became a way for us to paint the proverbial
canvas of life upon some distant rock face.
I secretly craved the moments we’d spend suspended from some vertical
canvas. Painting away, together, and
creating this world that had become ours.
I dreamed of the nights in the kitchen dancing away to the vinyl spinning piping
jazz from the speakers. I had come full
circle, and in fact had gone beyond that and discovered what it was that I had
missed in the past. The pieces fit. I had found a sunflower in a barren wasteland.
And then one day it
all came crashing down. The perfect
storm would brew from the depths of our past lives. The winds of change and the unforeseen
circumstances of my trying to balance life as a single father, and live as a
dedicated lover came face to face. All
shortcomings, idiosyncrasies, and otherwise seemingly harmless faults came
rushing forward. Patience and tolerance
would wane from time to time, but finding our center was never more than a rope
length away. It was not to be this
time. Through an unforeseen perfect set of missteps,
misunderstandings, and events, the ties that bound two magical souls severed
and the world came crashing down. How
quickly you find yourself standing amongst the rubble and trying desperately to
find a way through the smoke to a clear, safe, and peaceful place again. Time heals all wounds, and yet as I’ve become
all too familiar with, the scars remain to remind you of the incident, like a
roadmap to our lives. I look back on the
days we shared and I can’t help but smile.
I miss her laughter, I miss the nights of lying there awake and watching
her sleep. I still feel the touch of her
skin and I still smell the beautiful scent of her hair upon the pillows. I
still wake at night searching for her feet next to mine, I still see our bare
toes crawling towards one another in the desert sand. Regardless
of the how, why, when, or words thrown in haste..I choose to remember her like
a flower dancing in the wind. The
sunflower reaching for the sky. I see
her face when I close my eyes, and I feel her there when I climb without her. She’s like the wind now..always out there,
maybe not right here, right now, but her memory shall remain. The lackluster days were always there but insignificant. The bad days were surely there but they
cannot hold a candle to the wind that was so beautiful in our world. I close my eyes and remember the days of
walking amongst the pines, the wind soughing through the needles. I’d
give so much to have said so much more only a day before, but the deed is done
and the winds have died. As autumn
approaches in the Rockies I look back over my shoulder picking myself up again,
dusting myself off, and wiping my eyes..I look over my shoulder, back down the
path I had just traversed and I see her smiling in the sunflowers. Dancing in the wind. As the seasons perpetually change, so do our
lives. Whether we try our best, or fail
miserably, life too shall go on. I will
see her again, and all those I love, beyond this life, in another place..but
not yet. The wind will blow again, and
the sunflowers will dance.
