WOW!
i want to write, i want to emote. i want to share this current state of mind with the world but i’m afraid that if i try, it will not come out the same. that it will pale in comparison to how i feel right now. as i was pouring a bowl of Honey Comb cereal, there was a knock at the door. my first thought was “bill collector? internet company coming to shut me off? no.. i paid them. then who the hell is it?” i went to the door, and there was Mr. Postman! giving ME some mail! there was some junk mail.. a Mary Kay thing for my female roomate, and something else.. something in an envelope. it was thick. it had neat writing on it.. it was from Erica. ERICA! i got MAIL… from ERICA! this can’t be. there has got to be something wrong. but no.. it’s true. so i open up the envelope.. and inside is a card. i pull the card out and it is a picture of a man [black and white photo] walking along some lines in the street with his arms outstretched. along the bottom it reads. “some people will say that you are going the wrong way. when it is simply a way of your own.” -and how did i type that without even looking at the card? because i have purchased the VERY SAME CARD. it sits in my ‘card box’ waiting to be used. i had originally purchased it to be sent TO Erica because i figured she might enjoy the little ‘quote and picture.’ that’s very neat… very neat.
inside the card… are pictures! pictures of Erica and I. pictures that we took on her back porch. pictures of us kissing [we used the auto timer on her camera]. looking at these pictures makes my stomach tighten. looking at these pictures makes me wonder why i didn’t go AWOL [Absent Without Leave] from the Air Force when she told me that she loved me. why i didn’t stay there with her.. or bring her with me out to Montana. it’s moments like this that make me wonder HOW i could have just sat there… on a rock, in the mountains and said.. “well, i’m flattered.. i mean… i just. it’s just the wrong time i guess?” WTF is THAT all about!??@#$
you [being the reader] can’t know HOW many times i’ve thought of flying back up North to ’say hello’ to her. realizing at once that she is with a man that she probably loves. with a man that she may very well marry at some point. and i will have to watch from the sidelines, realizing that i may have missed the greatest opportunity of my life…. to love and be loved in return. don’t get me wrong.. i don’t doubt that i will at some point meet someone else who i love. that i will end up with SOMEONE.. but there will always be that.. that.. feeling. sitting there in the pit of my stomach. the ‘what-if’ feeling. god this hurts. it doesn’t bother me that Erica reads this journal.. she knows that i am an open person. that i am honest. she knows how my mind works, at least a little i would think. well.. Erica.. if you ARE reading this. i miss you. and to be honest… if you were to say “Nathan, come to Boston” at this very moment, i would leave. i would tell my job “i’m sorry, but i have to go.” i would pack a bag… go to the airport.. buy a ticket.. get on a plane and go. maybe not to sweep you off your feet. maybe not to propose marriage.. but to see you… to be with you. to bring back that feeling. it is hard to miss someone for so long. it becomes almost ‘bearable’ at times… but my thoughts do still drift to you. and that is when i write you a card… a simple card… that says “i just thought of you.” because i want you to know that i think of you still. that i think of sitting on your bedroom floor, going through the old box of “Nate things.” that i think of spitting grape seeds into the bushes from the steps at your back porch. that i think of ‘moments’ like sitting out by the fountain in Concord.. where all i could do was look at you.. and BE with you. and i touched your face then, i remember. and you said to me, “i usually don’t like when people touch my face.. but you make it feel so good.” [maybe not an exact quote but close.] and i think of when we went to the college to see the ‘musicians’ play. i think of how you made my heart flutter like the oragami bird with it’s head and tail pulled. i wish life were so easy that i could just ask YOU what i should do. that YOU were in some position to tell me what is right, and what is wrong. you still have my ring. the ring that i told you i would one day come back for. is it fair of me to come back for that ring? is it fair of me? i just don’t know.
i realize that this entry is drifting in and out between “to erica” context and “to myself.” i am just writing the way that the words come out. my fingers have not stopped though my thoughts have. i am writing straight from the source and it feels good. i am trying VERY hard to push the thought of those pictures out of my head. i know that must seem wrong, but i didn’t expect to feel this way when she finally sent them. i have been asking her for the pictures for two years now… TWO YEARS! GOD…. it’s honestly been that long… that makes me sad. it was six years before that, until i saw her again. we are losing ‘moments’ in this lifetime. we are losing memories… i think.
i don’t think i’ve ever written about this… i don’t think.. but i’m going to now.
i was scared when you told me that you loved me. i was scared because i didn’t think that i could have said the same thing to you at that moment. it had been SIX YEARS since we last saw each other… and then, we were in ninth grade! ninth GRADE! that’s insane. i wanted to love you. i wanted to HAVE BEEN LOVING you for years. but in those six years, you had become a ‘feeling.’ you had become a ‘happy thought.’ you had become ‘the person that i’ve known since i was a kid… and had a crush on.’ and in that ONE moment.. when you told me you thought you loved me; i froze. i was in the Air Force. i was stationed in Montana. you were in Concord. we were both WITH someone. how could this be happening to me i thought?! how could… after ALL this time.. the ONE girl that i would have stopped the world from spinning for, be telling ME that she now loves me. i couldn’t understand. and it sucked. i realize that ‘it sucked’ does not portray appropriately the feeling.. it hurt. i wanted to love you. and i think, to be honest, that i do love you. i think that i have always loved you. but it was and is a different kind of love. and i’m not saying that it’s not the love that dreams are made of, that it’s not sufficient love.. i’m just saying that it’s different. it is so long between meetings that it becomes hard. give me a week, and i could fall in love with you.. i did. you dont’ know how many times i thought about that ONE moment up there at Franconia Notch. you don’t know how many times in the following two years i had thought that i missed something. you telling me that, was like a shooting star that had passed overhead, and ALL of my friends were looking up.. and i missed it because i was looking at ‘our’ constellation… yes, yours and mine. the one that i made up when we were at Bow Elementary School that night. i still see it sometimes, and it brings a smile to my face. so i don’t know.. i don’t know what to think. i miss you Erica. i miss the ‘moments’ that we shared even in the little time that i was back in NH. even if, at the time, they didn’t feel like moments.
when i talk to you on the phone, i never want to get off… even if we have a silent moment, where neither of us talk. it doesn’t bother me. i want to sit there in that silent moment, knowing that you are on the other end. knowing that you aren’t going anywhere this time. i want to sit there, and think about your face.. your smile.. your laugh. i have known you since SECOND GRADE… i just don’t get it. i don’t understand how life can do this to people with merely a bunch of choices.
