This time of year is so hard. Early summer. The days are long and hot, the nights longer. And I can't sleep for the heat and the thoughts that run through my head.
There are times that this feeling sweeps through me. Memories of when we were young and foolish in that youth. Thinking that nothing truly bad could ever hurt us, touch us. That we'd live forever just like we were. Oh, the ignorance of those days. Sometimes I feel like I did back then so strongly that I turn to say something to you. To see if you feel the same, and then I remember.
God.
I don't know what it is that brings this melancholy for those days on me. Everything has changed so much. Not the least is me. I don't drive the same car anymore, don't wear the same clothes. Don't live in the same place; work at the same job. Even most of my friends are different now. Some gone, some changed like me.
Maybe it's the way the light reflects off of the high clouds or the sound of the wind in the leaves. I don't know. All I know is that I'm so incredibly lonely. Not sad, not really. If it was just that, I'd find some way to cheer myself up. But this feeling of wanting something different, something I don't have anymore is totally unrelated to sadness. It's hard to explain.
All I know is that I miss the way things used to be. Not the bad stuff, who'd miss that? No, it's me I guess I miss the most. The way I used to be, used to feel about things. Used to feel about you.
God, we were innocent back then, weren't we? So eager to turn the world on the ear and to hell with the rules. We had each other, what did we need with the approval of anyone else.
I remember nights like this when I couldn't sleep and I'd call you up. We'd go for a ride up the coast until I was tired of driving. Then we'd find some beach and walk in the moonlight. Not talking much, just being. That was the important part. Being us, being together.
Now, all these years later, I look at my life on these nights when I
can't sleep. Wonder where they all went to when I wasn't looking.
Was it Lennon who said that life happens while you were making other plans?
Maybe, don't remember, but it sure is the truth. You and I had big
plans. What we'd do when we were this age. And now, here I
am, this age and still trying to
figure everything out.
You know, it's not so bad getting older. Not really. It makes you appreciate all the things you had when you were young that you couldn't appreciate then. Makes you realize that you really were a lucky dog. Hell, what didn't I have back then? A job I loved and was good at. A nice place to live that I could afford with all the stuff that I liked around me. Sure maybe it wasn't as fancy as I might of liked, but it was mine. A cool car. And even after all this time, I still think that was the best car I ever had. I know you always made fun of it, but I know you secretly thought it was pretty cool too.
And then I had you. My best friend. The best person who ever graced my life. And that's what it was. Grace. I loved you so much at times that it was all I could do not to cry over it. You never knew that, did you? The times I'd look across at you, smiling that beautiful smile at me and feel as if someone up there must really like me. Sometimes I honestly wondered what I'd done to deserve you. To deserve you loving me the way you did.
Oh sure, we'd have fights, big ones. And our losses, even bigger. But through it all, we always knew we had each other. If one of us got into trouble, we knew that the other one would be right there to save our butts. What more can you ask for in a friendship but someone who'd lay their life down for you? We never realized how blessed we were. We were so dumb.
We never realized how blest we were. We were so dumb.
The moon is big tonight. It shines through the leaves on the tree outside the bedroom window casting silvery shadows across the room. The breeze makes the curtains flutter in the open window and the shadows seem to ripple across the bed. I never realized how bright that moon can be. Some nights when I lay here, sleepless and thinking these strange thoughts, I'll watch the stars. Of course, that 's on the nights when there's no moon. Nights like tonight you can't see the stars when the moon's so bright.
The moonlight, that silvery, rippling moonlight lies across the bed, setting the crystal on my watch to casting prisms around the room. Only they're pale, not like the ones cast by that big crystal hanging in the window in the other room. And that silvery light changes the colors in here. The blue bedspread seems purple, mutes the reds and oranges of the Mexican blanket I've draped over the big wooden chest at the foot of the bed.
But the prettiest change is what it does to your hair. Your golden hair that turns white in the moonlight. You lay there beside me, the white sheet that's as silvery as your hair pulled up to just under your arms. Your hair spreads across the pillows like white platinum. Like the white platinum of the rings we both wear on our left ring fingers. I could lie here all night and just look at you.
You don't know that either, do you? That I lie here and watch you sleep. It's something I started years ago, back when we were so young. But not as young as we once were. Because by the time we realized what we had between us we'd both lost so much. Almost lost each other before we found one another. Maybe it was all those losses that woke us up. I don't know, but I'm damn glad that we finally did wake up.
So you see, I really don't have any reason to feel so melancholy but I do. But only for a short while this time of year. The nights when the moon drifts across the sky and the stars fade away. The nights when the wind blows soft and cool through the window. Those nights I only survive because you're here beside me. Even if you sleep through them and never know that I don't.
I'm not lonely for anything in particular. Not really. I'm not lonely for you because you're right here. Maybe I'm lonely for all those years when I didn't know what I had and I was on the way to discovering it. Even that worst time of our lives, when I died and was given the chance to come back. To you. I'm even lonely for that.
Stupid, isn't it? The things you think about when the wind blows and the moon drifts?
Aw, I think I'm crazy sometimes. That we both are. But then, maybe we always have been. That's why we're so good together. Because we're crazy in the same way.
The moonlight's fading now. The blue bedspread has gone back to being just a dark patch and I can't see that blanket on the chest anymore. But I can still see you, even with my eyes closed I can still see you.
Here you come, rolling over onto my side of the bed. Just like you do every night. But tonight I don't mind. I need you holding me, even if you are asleep and don't know you're doing it. Or maybe you do know, deep down in that heart of yours. Know how to banish these strange thoughts and the loneliness.
I love you. And that's the only thing that keeps me from drifting off with the moonlight. That and this arm holding me down.
Now I can sleep again.