Missing You

It's hard to miss you.  I get caught off-guard by it, in the most random of moments.  While I'm sitting in traffic, because for a long time that always seemed to be the best time to reach you. And now, we don't talk. 

Sometimes, it's hard to wish that you had a relationship with someone that you might never have.  Sisters.  A rainbow of relationships resides under this title.  Best friends.  There, a rainbow of possibilities too.  In my ideal, it's different for us than it is between us now.  More like the love & laughs end of the spectrum, and not this painful, awkward distance state of exile.

I have an instant to vent in, and when I reach for the phone, you're the person that I want to call.  But, I don't call.  Too many times I called, and you didn't answer.  Little disconnects come to seem like little rejections, over time. 

I'm so ambivalent.  Sometimes, I just chuckle and throw up my hands and just entrust it to the Universe.  Sometimes, I'm in my "little me", and I can't seem to catch the tears before they fall. 

It's just so damn weird.  You put time, love, & efforts into friendships & familial relations, and still they can get all jacked up into twisted versions of their former selves.  Somewhere, step by steps again, we took a wrong turn.  You're off, being the hands of feet of Jesus, and I'm trying to practice what Jesus taught and not judge.  And we each have our lessons in our oddly parallel tracks.  And you're off, living the life of "either I'm obsessed or it's dead to me" and I'm trying to find a comfortable chair in your dead zone. 

So, where does that leave me?  Wrestling with my metaphysical strivings toward acceptance that, YES, this is indeed too also Universal Flow.  There is God & expansion in this too.  I can see it's outline behind the veil, a gift yet to be revealed.  And so, I wait and try to forgive myself.

Love Letter to the Part of Me that is You

Dearests,

I've known you for 30 years this month.  Thirty.  That's 5 years shy of how long I've been alive.  Our journey includes a trip through every major happenstance in my life thus far.  When I look at my life, there is no six degrees of separation.  Within every one degree of most of the pivotal moments of me, there is you.

I remember:

• Meeting you, and how you didn't like me until I mentioned you in Show & Tell.  "I'm moving to HER neighborhood!"
• The school bus ride where you told me about how AWESOME Boy George was. (A sign surely, and one I missed completely for years.)
• The adventures of Brownies:  Selling cookies; your Mom making our little Polish girl outfits; crafting ornaments that still hang from my Dad's Christmas tree. Crossing over the bridge & never going back.
• Our great plans for the bus stop
• Tinky
• Walks at the railroad tracks
• Shaw Park
• Swimming.  Lessons & Angie's bellyflops.  Playing mermaids (in your case, MerMen)
• The scar from the recorder I didn't want to give back.
• Stinky jelly shoes
• Talent shows & parachute pants
• Monkey bread
• Trip to Helen and all the crappy "grab bags"
• Trampolines, naughty magazines at Jenny & Jill's
• The guilt of the Hello Kitty Pen (my earliest transgression)
• Singing "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"
• Skating outfits at the roller rink
• Our Club Jackets
• Broken crayons
• Saying goodbye as we both moved away
• Then letters and calls and summer trips through chicken-farming country
• Borrowed dresses for church
• Getting saved, then baptized together
• Zelda & Castlevania
• Seeing the naked guy in his house window while sneaking to use his dock
• Scaring the pervert at the lake
• My first kiss at White Water
• Kissing boys, talking about kissing boys (then NOT kissing boys)
• Dorothy stepping on sausage
• Drops of Love
• Seeking & finding comfort in your friendship, through the awkward stage of middle school
• "Hesh-o?  Heeeeeshhhhhhohhhhh??"
• Mixed tapes
• Our crazy Moms
• Leftover pizza crusts
• Peace earrings & the five-finger-discount (a contradiction indeed)
• Trips to the lake with my Dad
• Coming to visit & have lunch with you guys in High School
• Twisted senses of humor
• How tan you both liked to be; HOURS at the neighborhood pool
• "The Tick"
• Going away to college, and you both going to Australia
• Missing you so much
• The happiness when you came back
• The greater joy when you came to UGA
• Being inseparable
• You both coming out to me
• Zimas and Flavine
• Living together - My room in the dining room
• Drags shows and cigarettes
• Pool nuggets
• Foxes
• Tattoos & Piercings (decorating our temples)
• Jumping the fence (and falling and scarring myself permanently)
• Tripping
• Falling
• Talking
• Dancing
• Losing hours & gaining perspective
• Blue waves on the wall
• Skipping class
• Music everywhere
• 40's
• Bass reverb in the Honda
• PRIDE Colors
• Crazy girlfriends
• More crazy girlfriends
• Breakups
• Makeups
• Baby Kool-aid
• Baby Greene
• Baby Shug
• Leaving Athens
• Drums & dreams of superstardom
• Long drives in the car
• Together again in Atlanta!
• Living together - My room in "the Bar"
• Stolen pepperoni balls
• Smoke haze & perceptive conversations
• Falling into holes
• Watching you fall in love
• Watching you fall out of love
• Watching her go crazy
• Art, art, art, and more art
• Watching your genius blossom in paint
• Being there for each other
• My procedure
• Not being there for each other
• Forgiveness
• Death of little dreams
• Death of a little dog
• Did I mention crazy girlfriends???
• Circling back to ideas of God, the Universe & expansion
• Expanding on that on our own
• Telling each other everything
• Learning discernment on what not to share
• My wedding
• Growing up, growing older, growing wiser
• Growing together, then stepping apart to grow on our own.

I recognize the beautiful rhythm of energy in the Universe. Sometimes we are in FLOW, expression, action. Sometimes we are in EBB, rest, reflection. All the time, we are connected; tied to one another by bonds of love that weave through the tapestry of our lives. I honor where you are. I honor where I am. I miss you, nonetheless.

As great my admiration and how deep my love runs, there has also been the shadows of pain and misunderstanding, because yes, even the best of friends can miss seeing eye-to-eye. In the grand pirouette of my life, some moments we've been ahead, some behind, some shoulder-to-shoulder, and some on different paths all together. I've laughed and cheered with you; I've cried with you; I've vented and boiled over, hugged and dreamed and planned the sheer greatness of my ordinariness. And always, always, always, I've held you in my heart.

I look forward to adding more memories to this list.  And I trust that in time, it will be so.