So Much Closer

I am still attempting to sort out this mess I have unwittingly gotten myself into. I am, as I have been for months, trying to find a way out. There is apparently none and I am trapped. I have done my best to meet other women and find in them the light I clung to in her because she is gone now, well not gone, but not here. She is not here physically and that is what is so debilitating. She has completely and wholly decimated me. The worst of it, is that I am almost sure she has no idea what she has done.


A few years ago I met her. She was with a friend of mine. I can't say that I knew then what I know now. That she could be the one to pull me out of the mess that inhabits my brain, and somehow at the same time, the one who could cause me to sink even deeper into it.

I saw her walking through the backyard of that old house we used as a venue. The grass growing far too high as none of us who lived there remotely cared about trimming it. The neighbors hated us. Fallen fence boards and beer cans littering the overgrown back lawn. Cigarette in hand she walked towards our group with him, her hair still reaching so proudly towards the small of her back. She was introduced, but I didn't think much of it, of her, not then. She was with him, and I had someone of my own who was calling me back inside because some nameless band was about to play.

Months, maybe years passed before I thought of her again, but by then she had moved clear across the state. Swept up by the mountains the east offered her in that small college town. She reveled in the glow of the sun beating down upon the rocks.

"I want to lay down in the grass and let the rain melt me down into the mud. I want to be washed down rocks and boulders, feel myself brush against their crevices, and eventually the sun will come out. The sun will come out and I will stop. I will be fixated to the spot where flowers will burst from me."

She had some strange connection with the outdoors that I could never and still don't quite understand. I myself have never been one for the outdoors. I do not even remotely enjoy camping or hiking or kayaking or rock climbing or really anything of the sort. I prefer the comforts of home. A warm bed or records spinning so perfectly on their axes or the steady drip of coffee brewing. My idea of spending time outdoors only involves my porch or the walk to my car.

One of the last times I saw her or maybe it would be more appropriate to say it was the first time I saw her. The first time I really saw her was at, of all places, a party. One thrown in honor of her surviving another year on this planet. Myself and two of my friends were the only guests out of place. We knew each other and no one else. Other than her. Her hair still almost sweeping the ground if only for that last evening. It was her first time back in town in months and I did not think too much of attending that party that night, but I had no other plans so there we were in some sort of half-garage, half-home, basement party. I am still quite unsure of what that place actually was.

But she greeted us with beer and none of us could really complain. The alcohol allowed for some sort of courage and we all mingled, getting to know her circle of friends, but all the while I was entranced by her. Her and those far-too-large-for-her-face glasses perched so precariously on the edge of her nose. Her blue dress sweeping just above her knees.

Announcements of "get out of my house" and the sort began and we all made our way to our cars amidst hugs goodbye and the ever important mantra of "drive safe". It would mark one of the last times I saw her for quite a while. After that night though, it was difficult to keep thoughts of her from entering my brain.

It was not for lack of trying. I had found someone else who, for a moment, I thought made me feel again. It appeared in the beginning to be sincere and honest, but fizzled or rather, imploded in on itself. Senseless fighting tore us apart faster than I thought possible.

She was who I ran to when I was at my lowest. I suppose that is really how all of this began. She picked me up from the depths of the heartache that had broken me and ripped me apart. She pieced me back together whether she knew it or not. She was responsible for saving me.

I cannot at any point say when I knew, more so it crept up on and overtook me. A wave of knowledge of her importance to my life. It became more and more difficult to ignore this, to keep it to myself.

It burst from me one night, having no choice but to tell her, I spilled every last thought from my head into hers. She had known for a while she said. She felt it too, but what possible course of action could we take from there? She was still so far and would be for the foreseeable future.

So I once again tried desperately to rend her from my thoughts. I failed in this endeavor miserably. Every thought was accompanied by thoughts of her. She had set up shop in my brain and refused to leave. It was impossibly hopeless to desire anything different.

She told me she would be back soon. For a weekend. That we would see each other then. Nothing else mattered to me for the weeks preceding those three days that she would be here.

We had an entire day to ourselves. We wandered the aisles of her favorite bookstore she had missed almost as deeply as anyone here. She was exactly as I had remembered all except for her hair now dangling high above her collarbones. It all seemed a blur. My greatest regret of our time spent together is that I cannot remember it as vividly as I would like. We left the bookstore for a sunnier spot. A park where we spent the majority of the afternoon laying in the grass picking out which clouds were masquerading as something else and which ones were just simply clouds.

The sun set and we ended up in my bed tangled together. We had no agenda; we were only concerned with being there, being with each other. Hours passed unnoticed by either of us. Everything culminated in that evening. Everything I had thought and every conjecture of could this really be something of importance was solidified in her embrace. There was something so pure about it. It was a natural closeness that we shared, something I had not experienced in years and have since not encountered. As beautiful as that night was, it ended.

It had to. She was called back to those mountains she loved so much. Ripped away leaving me in complete and utter shambles. I have not seen her since and do not know for certain what will happen from here. I do not know what will become of us. Who we will be to each other when and if she ever returns.

It is this complete lack of knowledge of the future that tortures me. It keeps me awake and allows me no peace. The hope I have for any future between us is terrifying. Everything could go wrong but I still cling to this hope, as foolish as it is.

I just can't help it.