Was It A Dream?

Cecilia, you’re breaking my heart
You’re shaking my confidence daily
Oh, Cecilia, I’m down on my knees
I’m begging you please to come home
Come on home

Jubilation, she loves me again,
I fall on the floor and I’m laughing,
Jubilation, she loves me again,
I fall on the floor and I’m laughing

Cecilia— Simon & Garfunkel
Go to sleep, may your sweet dreams come true
Just lay back in my arms for one more night
I’ve this crazy old notion that calls me sometimes
Saying this one’s the love of our lives.

Refrain:
Cause I know a love that will never grow old
And I know a love that will never grow old.

When you wake up the world may have changed
But trust in me, I’ll never falter or fail
Just the smile in your eyes, it can light up the night,
And your laughter’s like wind in my sails.

(Refrain)

Lean on me, let our hearts beat in time,
Feel strength from the hands that have held you so long.
Who cares where we go on this rutted old road
In a world that may say that we’re wrong.

“A love that will never grow old” by Emmylou Harris

Johnny sat down, took a sip of his coffee and looked around the room and smiled. It was a mischievous grin that lay upon his lips. The kind of smile that made people grab for their wallets or wonder if something was stuck in their teeth. It was silly, but if you asked him he would tell you that it was his favorite smile.

He loved it because it could be used in so many ways. With those he loved and who loved him it was simply disarming. Among those who didn’t know him so well it could be seen as a bit less than charming and in some cases simply infuriating.

Johnny didn’t care. He liked it that way. He was both intense and brooding. At times he could be exceptionally quiet or gregarious. He was perfectly happy to be the life of the party or content with his own company. Smiling again he chuckled and thought about the inherent contradiction in the description.

June didn’t want to be the center of attention. She didn’t need it nor did she look for it. But invariably she attracted people and more often than not she had her own group of people hanging around her. She was a natural hostess and entertainer.

Sometimes Johnny thought that she didn’t enjoy the dinners as much as she enjoyed the planning. Or maybe it was that she took so much joy in her lists. She was goal oriented and being able to cross off line items on her lists gave her pleasure.

Johnny wasn’t like that. He wasn’t a slacker nor did he lack organizational skills. He was very effective and efficient, but he moved at his own pace. Sometimes it frustrated June. All she wanted was a plan. Just something that she could look at and know what was supposed to happen. Looking back Johnny supposed that he should have given her one, she liked to be able to measure progress and a plan would have made it easier for her to do so.

But he hadn’t and that had created issues for him. June had been so very in love with him that he didn’t see how she could ever walk away. His own feelings mirrored hers and so it was more than a bit surprising when she walked out the door for the last time.

For a while he was angry and then just very sad. It was hard to understand how things had reached this point. For months she had refused to have any contact with him. He tried hard to break through the wall. There were telephone calls, faxes, emails, flowers, smoke signals and more. None of them worked.

And then one day she picked up the phone and he hung up. He had to laugh at the memory. On a whim he dialed her number and expected to hear her voicemail greeting. The shock of hearing her voice threw him so like a teenager he hung up the phone and stared off into space.

Heart pounding he wondered if he should hit redial, but he didn’t. Didn’t because he couldn’t figure out what to say or how to say it. That was assuming that she answered again, you never know, it could go straight to voicemail.

More time passed and he tried calling again and she answered. This time they spoke. For a short time they shot the breeze and caught up on what was happening with the other. In some ways it was very comfortable but it wasn’t quite normal.

For a while after this they would exchange short emails or text messages. But that communication only lasted if he drove it. If he didn’t reach out contact would cease. After a while he decided that he didn’t need to be responsible for carrying everything and he let go.

He figured that enough time had passed that he had to accept that it really was over. At least he tried to let go, the reality was that he never really did. Little things kept happening, reminders every where he went. So one night he drove out to a deserted field and screamed at the sky. Complained to the universe that it needed to be clear in its communication and stop fucking around.
And in return he received an answer of silence.

It was fitting. He didn’t really expect to hear some heavenly voice speak to him from a burning bush or any of the supernatural events that you read about. So he grumbled to himself, got back in the car and drove home. Once there he walked into his bedroom and promptly fell asleep on his bed.

In the morning he woke up, still dressed in the clothes he wore the night before. Somewhat groggy and disoriented he realized that he had been dreaming about June. In his dream she had kissed his cheek and told him that for the time being they needed to walk their separate paths. Then she hugged and kissed him.

When he woke up he realized that he could still smell and feel her touch. It made his heart pound some more and he realized that this just wasn’t done. At least he really didn’t think so, couldn’t say for certain.

But what he did know was that some of the darkness had lifted and he was ready to attack the world again. It wasn’t clear to him how long that would be for, just that he needed to do it.

Johnny reached out and grabbed his mug to down one last swallow of the liquid gold that he had brewed a short time earlier. That same mischievous smile danced across his lips. Had to be more than six months since that morning and all he could see were improvements in his life. Career was moving forward, workouts were productive and he was on his way to making the world his bitch.

That last though made him chuckle again. More than a few people would be irked by such a silly line, but that was fine with him. The man had been lost but now he was found. Might not know exactly where he was going or how he was going to get there, but dammit, that journey would be fun.