Dear June- It is 2011

Dear June,

It is January 2011, second week already. Hard to believe how fast time moves and how much can happen even when it feels like time is standing still. Sometimes the reflection that I see in the mirror startles me. He looks a little older and more weathered than I expect to see. It is hard to reconcile that face and the body that goes with it with the mental image in my mind.  That kid you knew apparently is a little bit older than when you first met him.

In so many ways he is still that same goofy guy and in others….well life has taken a bite out of his ass. He hasn’t quite decided what to make out of it all. There are parts and pieces of him that fight to make sense of some things. The rhyme and the rhythm of his life is out of whack and he finds it disconcerting. Sometimes when gets out of the shower he drops his towel and stares at himself in the mirror. There are relatively few things in life that he feels like he has control over so this is something that he has grabbed onto. Call it ego or whatever other term you want but he knows that he can control this.

That is, he feels like he can take control of this little piece of his life. He can focus on his diet and pump the weights a little bit harder. He has no misconceptions about being able to turn back the clock. That is not going to happen- he isn’t going to be 25 again but he doesn’t really want to be. All he wants is to slow things down a bit and create a better foundation for the future. So when he looks in the mirror he is checking his progress.

Not so long ago he made a number of other decisions regarding his life and the future he wants. He still dreams of the things that you two once spoke of and he wonders if the truth of his heart will match the reality of his day. He has reacquired the edge that he had when you first met and he works on sharpening it. In part it is a defensive measure that he takes to protect himself. While he never did stop dancing in the fire he had to figure out a way to turn down the flames so that he could focus on making the changes that were necessary.

And he has come to believe wholeheartedly that if lightning could strike once than it could strike twice. That crazy gypsy woman and the astrology all spoke of it and well…he doesn’t want to fight it. Doesn’t want to fight it because if things happen in the manner his heart whispers of it there is no point. It feels silly to say it. He has given that wistful smile a chance to grace his lips on more than one occasion because he knows that some things just are.

Because even when he tries to forget he remembers when a girl loved a boy so fiercely he learned how to love her back with the same intensity. And he remembers what it was like to lose that love and how hard it was to accept, if he ever did. Yet he also remembers the promises that were made and the bond that was forged. Those aren’t things that one can just forget or ignore.

So he delved deep into his heart and found the truth of his soul and decided to follow it no matter how hard or how painful it might be. Followed it because instinct said that if he didn’t he would be forever sorry. In the quiet of the night he wondered if he was a fool but still he followed it. Sometimes he walked under star filled skies and other times he wandered through forests in the black of night. There were more than a few occasions where he questioned his judgment and wondered if he had placed himself at undue risk.

Sometimes he would hear things stirring in the dark and he would wonder if friend or foe were close by. Periodically he would find a place to stop and rest. Some of these stops are among his favorite moments. Favorites because he would stop and stare at a full moon and feel your presence. He never had to search for it- it was always there. And he came to believe that the connection had never ever been severed. If anything interference on the line had made it become a little bit garbled and he had confused that noise with meaning that it was absent.

But ultimately it became clear that the two really were inextricably linked and for the time that was enough for him. He had things to do before a second meeting could be arranged and that was what he was focused upon. Time would tell whether he would sing the song of his heart by himself or if once again their hearts and hands would be intertwined.