Traffic In My Horizon

The smartest thing I did was walk away. My search for the purity and uncomplicated qualities of love was futile. At least for the time being. Just like a movie or fairy tale, dynamic lovers are destined together only at the very end. As if that anticipation made them better for it. Made them appreciate where they now stood.

Many times I considered getting into my car and driving. Driving miles and miles to where he lay, and in my head I always considered the lovelies that would pour out of my mouth, past my lips. I considered silence. I considered notes and gestures and tears and laughter. The uncertainty always tore at me. Without faith or program, I would seek him. Without conviction I would face this wrath, the fury that uncertainty had bled into my veins. As if resolving to conquer would perhaps resolve me of this frenzy, as if getting it off my chest, years from when this was first founded could further ease the pain.

It’s so simple. So simple to fall in love with a fantastic woman you met on a plane to Paris, so much so that with just her first name and the name of a chain hotel she’d be staying at, you find her, by calling every hotel in the country. So simple to sit at a bar, third beer in hand, gaze over to that charming man sitting alongside you, laugh, and realize that all you want is him, genuinely and holistically. So simple to stride past that same woman at the company salad bar – for years – not say a word. Be captivated by her elegance, the pencil skirt that grazes her the skin between her tanned lean calves and her thighs, her slender wrists and the charming gusto with which she speaks to other men, men behind the counter. You can only wonder how she’d speak to you, with you, alongside you. You can only wonder how her legs would feel as they skimmed along yours, wrapped together into you, how they would look in the bright sunlight that shone in at 7AM, if her right leg would be hooked around your wrinkled sheets. So simple to wake up next to the man that you’ve been sleeping and waking up next to for the past 8 years and realize how lucky you are, how handsome his supple skin looks against the harsh August sun beaming in mid-afternoon, gently coaxing you in and out of slumber on beautiful summer Saturdays. How handsome he looks when he stands from bed, the sheets unraveling and winding down from his waist as he’s reaching down for the small wire rimmed glasses on the nightstand that will delicately be held in place by the refined bridge of his nose. So simple to resentfully desire your best friend’s fiancé. To know that you’d willingly realign the stars in order to change your fates. To realize that it needs to be said said, to recognize though that, sometimes, enough is enough. So simple to usher into a train directly across a lively and energetic toddler. To wave, smile, laugh, coo. To sense, too, an overwhelming calm, a crushing restlessness. To understand that it’s all so simple and it’s everywhere.