 |
*As in "Welcome to" and where "Gator Country"
means "Los Angeles"
|
Gator Country: midnight is where the day begins
Ten years ago, I said goodbye to the only man I've ever really been in love with. We'd been together off and on for about six years. But he cheated. I was 25. I did the only thing I could when I walked in on him: I ran out. First sign of trouble, I still do that.
Crying up a rainstorm forced me to pull off the road. I remember having stopped in an empty parking lot before the road turned into the woods, falling out of the car, wobbly with a chest heaving hard to get the weight off of it. At that age, well, it was my first heartbreak. But I looked up at the night sky and it was beautiful. New Hampshire, Fall, small town near the coast. The air was icy clear. And it was so quiet, I had to get quiet too. There were so many stars.
I did something then that I've had to live with for a decade: I vowed never to lose the upper hand. And cheating? Forget it. Only I could do that. I saw a vision of myself then, juxtaposed against the midnight sky: clear blue water, white sand, and I'm out there in the shallows with my knees loosely drawn up to my chest looking seaward, waiting. For so long, I've believed in divine intervention, thinking that whoever eventually claimed me would just come and claim me. That's never happened.
I know, what the hell do we know at that age? Actually, I think a lot. I've spent ten years trying to be the person I was: vulnerable, trusting, open, neither vampire nor victim.
What have I expected? This is what I wrote not long ago:
Sometimes life never lives up to our expectations. But what do you do when She gives you more than you wanted? Schooled on Greek tragedies, most of us turn away: life can be so cruel. Worse to not get what you wanted, than get it and have it taken away from you or, worse yet, find out you were wrong all along. This has nothing to do with being afraid of dying, but being afraid of living. Of Failure, or Love Lost.
My God. For so long, I have been afraid of living; more specifically, of losing. And because of that, I've always gotten what I've wanted -- or at least what I thought I did -- and never fully appreciated it.
Driving into work today, I heard these lines in a song, and I pulled over, tears welling up in my eyes:
And I feel
Like I'm drifting, drifting, drifting from the shore
And I feel
Like I'm swimming out to her
Midnight is where the day begins
|
|
