Although I play a part in this story I feel that my true call is to tell it. I could share insignificant details about my own character and upbringing but instead, I will tell you exactly why I am in this very moment holding this cold cup of coffee here and now. The best part is it all has to do with him. October fell on a Tuesday the afternoon I met him. Quite like the romantic comedy involving a smart and witty school girl falling heels over head for a charming musician from afar, we bumped shoulders in a coffee shop somewhere in Brooklyn. A casual collision to him and a monumental moment for me, he quickly apologized as I attempted to hide my reaction to the first touch that ever made my heart skip a beat. As if his unpolished look wasn’t enough to make my palms sweat, the thick accent that danced between his teeth caught my breath as he asked me if I was all right. Unable to form my own dialect I nodded as he casually offered to hold my books while I dabbed the latte that was hopelessly sinking into my skin. Poking fun at my intellectual choice of reading Paulo Coelho that morning, he revealed the simplest laugh I had ever heard with a dimple to make it concrete. Through glossy eyes I got to experience that laugh three more times as the coffee faded cold in our hands. A few more jokes and a handful of light-eyed winks later I was his and for some odd reason, he was mine. Hours, days, weeks, months. It all blends together now as I sit here holding the same cup of coffee. He was everything I thought he would be. Bold, inspiring and magnetic, he gave my patterned life new meaning and as quick as he entered it, he left. With a fallen family member and being unable to find work in the States, he went back home leaving me a promise that he would return when he was no longer broken and in the same way he appeared, on an October Tuesday in a coffee shop. While life passes, time stands still for the lonely. My family worries, saying that it is natural but unhealthy to remain “hung up” on your first love. I guess some people think it is strange to spend every single Tuesday afternoon sitting silently in a coffee shop until your drink becomes too cold to taste. I used to read, but then I finished my books and lacked the energy it took to find more. It’s funny how draining it is to use only your mind. Now I just sit thinking about him. Remembering the lines across his cheek from an argument he could not win, the circles under his eyes because he refused to sleep, even the melodies he whispered in my ear every time I asked him to stop singing, I wallow in my longing for his presence. October has almost come and gone again and I realize that even if I am willing to wait forever, I can’t. I sing the same sad song fully knowing that waiting has taken up a good portion of my life on this Earth and I can only hope that it will be worth it when he finally arrives. How I yearn for that fall afternoon. The coffee shop encounter will come. He will come. He has to.
Ugh. Ouch. That's scary and lovely.
ReplyDelete(And don't worry. You're not the only one who got "caught" on your first love.)