The Writing's on the Wall

Or, in today's case, the stall. I don't particularly pay attention to the random scrambling of words and thoughts on bathroom stall walls, but one section of lines caught me off guard today. What I originally thought was a stanza of a poem was really lyrics to song broken in four lines. I always think it's interesting to see how other people break thoughts or lines into segments--which is why I even noticed this particular scribble on the wall in the first place.

After reading the first two words, "My hopes," I literally felt my heart flutter inside me, I knew what was to immediately follow those words, the feeling was familiar, the lines were rehearsed, a memory of you came flooding back to me, ironically in the privacy of a public bathroom.

My hopes are so high
that your kiss might
kill me so won't you
kill me, so I die happy?

I laughed to myself realizing "our song" held significance to someone else, so much so in fact that they needed to write out the lyrics on the bathroom stall. And then I laughed out loud at the realization that we even had a song--who has songs nowadays?!

I cannot describe the way I miss you, it's not the kind of "miss you" like I yearn for you and want you back, no. It's mostly the way in which I miss you, how when I think about you a cheesy smile surfaces, how when I talk about you, people don't believe me. When I read the lyrics to our song on the wall today I told my friend, Jacky, about it, about you, and us. I told her the story of how I sent you flowers for your 26th birthday--and how at the very mention of it, she laughed in my face in disbelief. "You? Sent...him...flowers?" she said. And then I explained how I couldn't see you on your birthday because it was in the middle of the week and you, my dear, are in Wisconsin. She told me that she wished she knew me when we were together because she cannot imagine the kind of person I was then (with you), especially knowing the person that I am now. I told her how our away messages were lines from "Hands Down," by Dashboard Confessional--a song, our song, that no matter how many times I listen to and no matter where I am when I do, your face is the only one I see.

I make such a conscious effort to not be in a relationship that when I stop and remember when, I remind myself of who I was and what I wanted, a question that I still don't know the answer to. What I do know is that I've never been more myself than when I was with you.

When I texted you today to tell you about the writing on the wall, I knew immediately how you would respond. And now, even as I write this, you cannot stop texting me. I love that we can exchange memories and thoughts and feelings without worrying about anything, about overstepping our boundaries or crossing any lines.

I love that I know you so well. I smile in reflection at all the things I loved about you. I admired the drive you had in finishing school and remember how in the middle of your night classes you IMed me as your professor walked by. I loved that in the midst of your busy schedule you coached middle school basketball, and I love that now that you've graduated and are working full-time you STILL coach basketball.

I can't explain why the last time we saw each other (two years later) everything felt the same, exactly the same. There was no pressure, no awkward sexual tension, it just felt right. You came over and we watched Smoking Aces in my bedroom, I can't remember when or even why, but you took my hand in yours and I remember not even realizing it until I had to get up and stop the DVD when the movie ended.

I don't know why all of this is coming back to me now, or even what it means, but I am grateful for you, your very being and the side of me you brought out when I was with you, a side of myself that I haven't seen years.

I listened to Dashboard during my entire ride home today, on the train and even in my car as I drove back. When the acoustic strumming of guitar strings began in "The Ghost of a Good Thing," I teared up. I remembered how a line from the song ("Love is like a role that we play,") was my away message, and you IMed me, our first conversation in months. I'm sorry I made it impossible for you to talk to me. I'm sorry that for the next year or so afterwards, the only conversation we had was through lines of lyrics in our away messages. But I think in not saying what we wanted to directly to each other, the words of these songs gave us the dialogue we needed because we simply would not have done it justice. And most of all, I'm sorry that I told you I loved you back (for the first time) in an e-mail. I'm sorry for a lot of things.

I don't know why you are in my life. I don't know why you were in the first place, but I am certain there's a reason. I might not find out today, or tomorrow, or in a year, but I believe I'll figure it out when the time is right.