strike that

the difference

i had this conversation once in college, ten years ago, with the other guy, and he didn’t get it then, because he was twenty. it’s the sort of thing you’re allowed not to get when you’re twenty. but now it’s half a lifetime again later, and the other guy gets it but here i am saying it again (to you, in a way; but this is not entirely yours). this is a clarification, for this mess and others, mine and not mine.

you do not get to be the first thing i see in the morning. you do not get to be the first person i tell. and we will go hear music together, but only if you are free and if i am. and i will not make you late for work.

and you will be dear to me, and i will think of you well, but you will not be the reason that i laugh in the middle of the dishes, and you will not be the reason i look forward to my workday ending, though i love my work. and i will write you letters, good ones from airplanes with good pens on odd bits of paper, and i will choose each stamp for you as if it was all that mattered. but i will not hold the envelope in my hands by the mailbox, thinking of how you will hold it in your hands, feeling time stretch out around me.

you can tell me long stories still, and i will still ask lots of questions, and i will listen every bit as much to the answers. and i will still want what’s best for you, perhaps even more so. but you may not shelve my books between yours, though you may borrow them.

and we can see a movie, but it will be in a theater, and we can make dinner but we will not wake up and go to the farmer’s market for the ingredients, you will not get me coffee there, i will not tell you about radishes. i will not hold the eggs while you go back for more goat cheese. it’s just not what we’ll do. we’ll be doing other things.

and we will be fine with this, you and i, we will feel no loss and this saddens me most of all.

and i will always, while this is unraveling and long after, answer your calls late at night, i will leave my phone by the bedside if you are questioning the importance of your job or sad about the news or not sure of what to do next or if someone is making you feel the out-of-shape parts of your heart, is making you make the choices you think you can escape making. but it will not be me next time, confused boy. it will not be me.

posted by tortaluga @ 9:34 PM