Step Into My Story

Everything felt a bit detached. There I was walking the same paths, the same gravel that I always had, but this was different, because at the end- she would be gone.

I started my day as typical as usual: coffee, clothes, hanging out with my cat- Yes, I'm aware how that sounds.

But today was truly more riveting than my usual routine, I had prepared for this; I felt myself with every step, looking backward…

Because today was the day I lost my girl.

Step 1: I thought about when I met her in college… so many events leading to one. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with me. I smiled, I looked- but she had no idea that she was going to be everything I needed to keep going.

((keep moving feet))

Step 2: I found myself in the on-campus cafeteria struggling to pay for a sandwich when she offered me half of hers- WITHOUT EVEN BLINKING! I thought to myself, “Could this be real?! Is she this perfect?”

Step 3: I joked with her after that, playing music in the old editing hall of the Journalism building at school. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

Step 4: She gave me her phone number!!! …

Step 5: She doesn’t answer my calls.

Step 6: She goes on ‘Winter Break’- back to Ohio; we joke back and forth through ‘Facebook’… I couldn’t believe anyone could make a ginger bread house so perfectly terrible.

Step 7: She returns to me…. She’s back! And then, everything changed…

“Hi. Welcome back”, I say stuttering over my voice and feet simultaneously.

She’s sitting on the steps of our shared classroom… I could’ve fallen if I didn’t have her glorious best friend (and relationship advocate) there to still me.

“Hi!” She replies in orange Ray-Ban sunglasses, or “Sunnies”, as she would call them.

The chat was quick, but it was all I needed.

Fast forward to Step 25: “I love you.” … “I love you, too.”

The romance was built on something I still can’t define or understand. There was a point in me that knew it was always her, but when she got to that’ point – I’ll never know. But this I know, it was frantically whimsical, and wonderfully certain. She was my best friend. And we somehow, made a bubble where we loved each other. I'm not always aware of the definition of "love"... I was always sure that didn't exist or was subjective..... Now I think it relies more on the subject as well as an active.

Step 912: She’s here… and now she’s leaving. It’s an odd day in the desert… an odd day all around. It’s raining, and It’s as if the state--NO!—the world, knows I’m losing my girl.

….and now we say ‘goodbye'?

I walk around the ridge and see her walking towards me… “It’s drizzling, isn’t that crazy?” She says.

...All of it felt too ironic, because I knew we’d both be sharing that feeling of loss in the moments to come.

I walked with her, she talked to me… maybe talking a bit too much- but this time it was lighter… not in voice, but in understanding that soon we no longer could talk “weather” or whether…

Our minutes counted out in seconds, our hour in a spare shred of a page… she was leaving to move back to Ohio and I was certain that Ohio was simply another word for what already had been the end.

Our love had always been there… But the divide was clear and neither of us had the guts to say it. I mean, what do you say to the person you loved so full-heartedly? So entirely? When they are leaving… but you both had already evacuated the romance?

I reached my hand, and like clockwork, she reached hers back, fingers entwined, we sat on our path.

There was a bench, trees overhead dripping subtle tears from above… I didn’t have much to say; neither did she.

There is a moment in life, one most won’t allow, but here it is: there is a moment when you realize something so gloriously beautiful has come to an end. This is (without a doubt) the most agonizing feeling one can feel. You are left with the remembrance of a soul that was part yours, tearing away- with no reasoning as to why, but yet a feeling of knowing it’s time to “say goodbye.” It’s a beautiful heartbreak, if one should exist. And it is also the dreamcatcher over your bed for many nights to come. Will you ever again feel what you did when you were there? When you were ‘young’? Or will you completely compare every other heart and soul to the love you once felt coarse through your very self?

A tear shed. She didn’t mention it. But I felt my eyes tearing too, bright blue soaking in an unlikely Nevada dark sky. She kissed my hand, looked through me (as she always could), but this time I let her.

As she walked away, she swirled in her rain-dropped sundress and looked back at me and said, “You know, this isn’t the end. You know you’re going to end up marrying me, Mr. Carter.”

I’ll never forget the grin that spread halfway across my lips… Mostly for the girl in the yellow dress, but more-so for the fact that she gave me something to believe in.

Step 2020: I haven't seen that girl, that dress, or felt the raindrops as I did that day. I remember that path so vividly… the musk in the air of a desert blowing chill. I think about her time to time, in fact I think I see her in everyone I have ever dated. I don’t know when that little rainy storm will blow over, but truthfully, I hope it never does. If one day I end up in Ohio, I know exactly where I’ll be.

The end of my story is simple, I imagine a world with people like her existing, and it makes me exist. No one has ever done that for me. It’s a four-leaf clover, it’s a “tell your grandkids” story, it’s a sherbet ice cream melting on the ground to create the mosaic of life. But more so than anything, it’s a hard and fast love story—and some times… excuse me, but (every) time- those need to be told.