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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Paths

In those bright and blinding lights in that crowded lonely place, I remember your smile. It hardly left your face that night. And if you were happy, I was happy. Maybe it hadn't always been that way, but it had come to be that way.

I remember you ordered some fruity girly drink I had never heard of, then you ordered a second one. We watched too much karaoke and caught up on the last year. You went and put our names on the list to sing -- Love Shack by the B-52's. But we ended up leaving before we got a chance to sing our song.

There were a hundred times that night I could have leaned over and kissed you. How you would have reacted is a question I'll never know the answer to. It is pointless to even ponder such a thing.

Maybe if I had known that was the last chance I would have. Maybe if I could have seen that we were coming to a fork in the road of our lives that would take us in different directions and worlds apart. Maybe if I could have seen beyond those bright and blinding lights and your intoxicating smile. Maybe then I would have kissed you.

But who can ever really say?

All I know is that you were happy. For one night. The last time I saw you.

"Well you do what you do and you pay for your sins and there's no such thing as what might have been. That's a waste of time. Drive you out of your mind..."

19 comments:

  1. Bone when you're not writing funny you're writing beauty

    You leave a lot to the imagination--even why you left before you had a chance to sing, and why was she happy? I like it when not everything or anything is spelled out

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  2. Oh, this is beautiful. And the beauty in this kind of never-know, is that you can always imagine that it would have been wonderful. Of course, that's the pain in it too, but without the pain you could never have the beauty. Lovely post.

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  3. well this is sad Bone. i would have liked to read a happier ending for you and that girl. sounds like you both had something sparking there. i feel as though that never knowing will haunt you.

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  4. Beautiful post; but I can't help but wonder what happened in your life or hers that caused the post.

    It sounds like she got married, or maybe she moved or the worst thought was she died. Hope it was not the last.

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  5. Pia - Thank you. Where I struggle most are the spaces in between :)

    I was just trying to write a few decent lines. (Hopefully I did.) If I'd written much more, it would probably have gone downhill rather quickly.

    J Adamthwaite - Thanks very much. That's a good way to look at it, because the reality might not have been as beautiful as what you imagined.

    Michelle Johnson - Aww, well thanks for that sentiment. Those situations are just part of the experience of being alive. It might sound weird, but I wouldn't not want to have gone through it.

    Penny Candy - Oh no, it wasn't the last. I was afraid someone might think that though. I'm really not sure why that particular memory crept into my head on this particular day, but it did. Thanks.

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  6. It might be pointless to wonder such a thing... but it's also human.

    I was gonna wait on a "beautiful and pensive" comment from Murf, but I'm not sure I can :)

    It's just wonderful.

    (OK and sad. But the sadness does not diminish the wonderfulness in the least.)

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  7. You leave us with a lot of questions-good writing, Bone.

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  8. It's not sad of course, it's life and you write it beautifully.

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  9. I remember several times in my life when I thought such thoughts. It was only much later that Garth Brook's "Unanswered Prayers" made sense. One day I'm sure that song will make sense to you too.

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  10. TC - Yeah, I was kinda waiting on the same thing :) She probably doesn't want me to start taking them for granted.

    Thank you.

    Sage - Sometimes less is more? Thanks.

    Xinh - Thank you.

    Cooper - Why thank you, Miss Cooper. I guess I have it filed away more as a good memory than a bad one. Life provides the best writing material sometimes :)

    Ed - Oh, you mean like how I feel now about Rich Rodriguez turning down the Alabama job and winding up at Michigan instead? I'm thankful every day of my life for that :)

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  11. I guess that if you have to have a "last" memory of someone, it's a good thing to have it of them being so happy.

    Hopefully someone has such a memory of you, too.

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  12. I'm saving the "beautiful and pensive" comment for just the right occasion. Normally this would be it but the whole time I'm reading it, I kept thinking "This would make a GREAT Craig's List Missed Connections entry".

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  13. By the way Bone, I'm ignoring that Rich Rod comment. Although he is better than a Spartan leftover who is now starring in Tim McGraw movies. :-)

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  14. Ah, the path not taken...and how often it lingers on the mind~

    Poignant.

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  15. How beautifully sadly romantic

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  16. Mama Zen - Thank you.

    TC - That's kind of how I was thinking about it.

    Yeah, I would like to think someone does, though no one comes to mind right off the top of my head :)

    Actonbell - Thanks. I guess I didn't realize just how much I left untold. But sometimes, I think that lets people mold the words to better fit their own experiences, or vice versa.

    Murf - Craig's List Missed Connections? I gotta get on that Internet.

    That's fine. We couldn't be happier with our Spartan leftover :). So as long as you're happy with RichRod...

    Mayden's Voyage - Yep. I started to title it something like The Path Not Taken, but it was way too Robert Frost.

    Genie - Thank you.

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  17. I guess I was hoping perhaps SHE remembers you smiling and being nothing but happy that night, too.

    But maybe that's me just wanting to rewrite someone else's history, even when they are content with it the way it is.

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