Never In My Wildest Dreams

Nearing final draft of her first chapter. 07/02/2018

You came into my world like high beams on some two lane highway in the middle of a desert night; just as I lost the fight between thirty more miles and pulling over for a nap until sunrise. Fracturing my momentary dream into a million pieces of panic and surprise your light burned through the lids of my eyes and your horn’s noise grabbed at nerves that shook my insides alive.

I remember the giant halo of your glow and light coming head on, the fog in my brain was overwhelming as muscle memory spurred both hands and they registered on the wheel. My grasp was wrapped tight and pulled sharply, sending me into a wrenching swerve: a sudden desperate attempt to avoid our impending collision, as you careened head long my way. In the moments that came, I couldn’t tell if you were slowing or attempting to avoid the obstruction of my vehicle that had wondered into your lane. I only knew the fear as my life flashed before my frozen, bulging eyes. I felt my knuckles strain, threatening to rip flesh, as they pulled against the tension of my grasp on the wheel.

I remember feeling my knee slam under the dash as terror took me and I over compensated. With pang in knee, I stabbed my foot back down at the break. I remember the feeling of gravity shift as my vehicle began to swerve. My body flattened into the door panel and I began the fight to regain control of my vehicle, twisting down that lonely highway.

I remember my body recognized and felt something I couldn’t have truly experienced. At least something internalized differently, this specific time, than any other before or after. Both the fear of loosing control and this new feeling are forever linked somehow. It was something I felt as my shoulder pressed into the drivers side door panel: the feel of the gravel beneath my tires, not in the normal sense of peeling out, or hot rodding around a turn, or when you are navigating a gravel incline and a tire slips, spinning a bit. But, I remember feeling every, single, piece, of gravel, as my tires slid over them, like they were brail desperately attempting to be read by someone with an untrained hand.

And suddenly, I remember, I was fighting gravity to avoid being thrown into the empty passenger seat next to me; with the dutiful assistance of my safety belt I remained behind the wheel. By this point my perspiration was beading at my brow and my palms were slick and damp. The smell filling my nose was terrible: rubber skidding across tar and the metal chemical burn of clutch mixed with burning metallic fumes of locked, red hot breaks. The noxious smoke produced from the instant tread wear of tires attempting to grapple with the texture of pavement at sixty miles per hour and the dust thrown up from the narrow desert road was thick in the air as my vehicle began to spin violently. This must have been one of my wildest dreams.

Your tail lights passed by my view out the front windshield a few times before I came to a slow, lazy roll backwards, eventually coming to a halt on the pavement; vision now dizzy and disoriented. My motion had not stopped however. The spinning had turned my head into one of those twirling carnival rides and transformed my extremities into shaking nerve noodles, who’s vibration emanated from my core.

Regaining my composure, I found myself immediately worried about who I had almost collided with and what state they were in; my concern seemingly met with reply as your hazard lights lit up from the rear of your vehicle ahead. I remember blood pumping in my temples as I raced toward your vehicle, grateful to be alive, and grateful you were still on the road and in one piece as well. 

Closing the distance to your flashing hazards, just hoping you were okay. I felt embarrassed and foolish for putting myself, and you, at risk not stopping a few miles back. I prayed you were not scared or upset with me. Not knowing what to expect as I slowed to a jog nearing your vehicle, I took in the details of the multiple spins my vehicle completed as it whipped round and round directly down the center of the highway. I took in the sight of fresh tread on the pavement left by my tires, scrawled like a signature of some artist signing their work of near miss.

I remember as I looked up again to where your vehicle had come to a stop, that you too where now running my direction. As we approached each other I could tell we both did a quick visual assessment of each other, our vehicles, the tire tread scrawl on the road. We asked each other if the other was okay and learned no harm had come to the other other than shaken nerves and a bit of embarrassment on my part.

I remember hearing your laugh for the first time as we sat on the side of that highway in the middle of the night and lost track of time. We talked about everything, and nothing, as we watched the stars and smiled at each other honestly. Morning came faster than either of us expected, announcing it’s arrival gloriously. The sunrise was exceptionally beautiful that morning. As we peacefully watched, finally pausing in conversation for the first time since we met, we took in it’s orange, blue, yellow, and pink shifting colors sharing glances at each other now and then, trading smiles and blushing cheeks as we did.

As the morning sun’s heat set upon our skin and the brightness of the desert view began to become overwhelming you turned to me with a smile. I remember taking your business card and the electricity fire through my fingertips as our hands touched for the first time.

Your touch felt so exotic then, like some distant land I had read a million books about and knew every detail of but had only experienced through reading the texts written in those pages. I imagine I looked like an adventurer, captivated and in awe, as if I had just stepped off an old steam engine train onto a new landscape. Amusing the locals as they sat on weathered street side benches watching a new traveler, standing bent backwards at the waist; starstruck seeing, smelling, and feeling the foreign environment they had read so much about but were only just experiencing it’s wonders first hand.

As I put your business card into my wallet, so many unknown feelings and pressing questions that I wanted to ask you were coming to my head, fighting each other for place in line and internally pleading for one more second of your time. They were interrupted by one major new question I hadn’t considered so distracted by my internal conflict.

When would I see you again? This question was followed by an even larger: Would I see you again? I was so caught off guard at their staggering weight I remember feeling intimidated by how much they meant to me. 

I chickened out. I didn’t ask and in that moment didn’t know what to do with myself, or my shaken emotions, as we said our good byes.

Before you turned to depart I managed to make sure you too had my number and awkwardly, shuffled back, half facing you, half trying to walk away. I could tell you noticed in the words your smile and laugh always seemed to hold.

I remember watching you drive away as I sat in my vehicle feeling the growth of the stress ball in my stomach escalate. I realized we were going in opposite directions for the first time since we had met and something immediately felt missing in my world. I remember kicking myself not wanting to end up just some guy who you met and that had tried calling you down the road or became just a story of a time you almost got hit head on by some guy in the middle of the desert one starry night. 

A bit late, but just in time, I buckled my seat belt and decided not to become that guy. After pulling my vehicle’s door shut and turning the ignition, I shifted into gear and sent gravel flying behind me, accelerating toward you. Headed in your direction, chasing after you for the first time.

My heart raced as I drove fast to catch up to your vehicle once again and as I pulled up behind you, I obnoxiously got your attention with my horn and the flashing of my lights. I couldn’t believe I had chased after you like a crazy! What would you think of this? Was I crazy?

As you stepped out of your vehicle, I took in your staggering beauty and I confidently acknowledged, almost applauded myself; I had made the right decision. I jogged up to you on the pavement of that two lane highway and blurted out “When will I see you again?!”. Your radiant smile and captivating laugh again told me everything as it often did; I would learn.

I cancelled all of my plans. My new job would have to wait, or I’d find a new one when I got to my destination. I suddenly had you placed at the center of my life’s main screen and didn’t for one second consider what else was going on outside in my periphery. Everything seemed like it mattered just a little bit less than the focus my mind found when trained on you. I spent the day with you, headed in your direction. We played, both lost in the world together, on a new adventure, and loving every moment of it.

By that evening I was already in love and knew it, as I, for the first time, watched the sunset reflect forever in your eyes. I will never in my wildest dreams forget your smile when I admitted my love to you as we watched those stars again, together, that second night.

I also remember how we really met, and this isn’t it! Not even close! But it sure could have been. I mean, some things are similar to how we truly met all those years ago and how our story really went as we fell in love.   

The first night we met, I remember we were hurling in each other’s direction at a million miles per hour and barely missed colliding. That near miss put us into a permanent dance as we orbited each other - dancing in and out of each other’s life, always friends, lovers, strangers, family; whatever we needed to be for the other at that specific moment in time. 

The night we first met I knew, without a doubt, I had met the most amazing woman and I couldn’t believe that I had finally found you; never in my wildest dreams did I think you were really out there. 

That night, I found my best friend as we watched the stars and talked until the sun came up about everything, and nothing. We also spent the next day playing together and I really did watch the sunset reflect forever in your eyes. I did fall in love with you, only almost immediately, almost at first sight. We were a lot younger in those days.

My love switch flipped the very moment you said “Hiiii” that way you did. Your mysterious brown eyes - strands coloring them wonderful, as your cheeks smiled for days. They reached into me latching onto my heart and I did not resist the comfort of your grasp. There was just something so familiar in the way you drew me in and made a place for me in your world. I felt like I had seen this smile of yours before somewhere and it belonged right after that “Hiiii” and right in front of me. There was also something so familiar in the way you said my name, always smiling, you giggled a lot more back then.

Though, we wouldn’t admit it the first night we met, we both knew immediately we would fall deeply in love. I remember the night in that lonely desert town bar on the side of that dusty two lane highway where we finally admitted those first feelings to each other; all those years later. We were lost in smiles and laughs, taking turns loading the jukebox, and ordering rounds of shots, as we traded our independent recounts of fighting hard to find the time and place for those feelings as we journeyed down life’s highway, waiting patiently, to end up in that desert bar’s corner booth we were sitting in: giving in, no longer resisting our feelings of love - one song at a time, after dancing the night away on the bar’s patio dance floor, under the stars.

I remember the exact moment we fell in love, together, fully, deeply, for the first time, in that desert bar.

I chased after you and your smile, following the echoes of your giggle, from that moment on without any regret and loved every moment you chased me back, laughing as we played. I remember how grateful I was getting to know you and how grateful I always will be to have spent all the moments we shared through the years, building our story. The rest of that story of how we really first met, all the songs we shared leading up to the corner booth of that desert bar we found ourselves finally embracing our love in, and what happened after that night are all stories to be remembered another time I think.

I remember the many other things that are similar in the fictional near-miss collision on the desert highway story I started this letter with, but happened completely differently, to a completely different moment, in a very real part of our story.

This part of our story is why I’m writing this letter. I think it is supposed to help...telling you these things. We always shared our deepest feelings with each other and It’s hard holding them all by myself. I’m working on it, love, I promised. Writing these letters to you and the chapters of our time together contained within.

In this part of our story and part of our chapters is a moment where I remember a collision that happened head on and it all started with a phone call.

I remember we were both asleep at the wheel and wholly unprepared as I raced down the highway to you. I remember how sudden the impact came after I reached your side. I remember the pain and jarring as your light in my world, that light that engulfed my vision completely, was in a moment no longer present. I remember my confusion as my momentum came to a complete, and immediate, halt. I remember that I didn’t even have time to scream or brace myself as everything in my world shattered in a devastating explosion and all it’s shiny pieces showered into the air around me. I remember that I didn’t even have both hands on the wheel as my life turned upside down. I remember that there was no seat belt to fasten me in as my breath choked in my throat, stalled, as if suspended mid air.

I remember the look, taste, sound, smell, touch, and feeling of every, single, thing, in that hospital room. I remember the smell of my tears in your hair. I remember how soft your skin was and that your fingernails were not painted like they normally were as I held your hand. I remember the feeling of my nerves as they achieved complete pandaemonium within me. I remember I was trembling as I struggled to breath between crying, then breathing, then crying; tasting the snot running from my nose mixed with the salt that clung to my face as I sat at your side. I remember hearing the sobs in the room as your heart rate monitor stopped blinking. I remember that exact moment you left me. I remember all of the feelings I felt at that moment as my emotions burned deep within and imprinted them as if by brand, permanently emblazoned on my soul. I remember not having the words for them then and I still do not have words for them now. I remember every single detail, reflected in the pieces of my world, as they crashed to the polished surface of that tiny emergency room’s grey and white checkered tile floor. 

I remember that for the first time in a long time we were no longer running toward each other, or in the same direction together, and you weren’t there to make sure I was okay. I remember praying that you would be okay but my heart didn’t hear the echo of yours anymore to be sure. I remember hoping you were not lonely just minutes after you left and began crying: differently, because I didn’t know how to be there for you like I promised I always would be. I remember wanting so badly to chase after you, especially in the months that followed your funeral to keep that promise I made. I remember wanting to make sure you weren’t alone and be by your side as you took off on this new adventure to make sure you got under way okay. There was no catching up to you minutes down that adventure’s road, just to see your smile again and hear you laugh at me for being silly for chasing you as you called me a crazy. I remember trying to lighten my mood and joke to myself about you making a new friend jealous, telling them about a guy that loved you unconditionally in another life. But, I remembered I could not chase you this time; I couldn’t be there to hold you if you happened to fall in love with him and he broke your heart. There was no way to pick you up off the ground and piece your heart back together with pieces of mine if it was broken this time.

I can only hope your resting heart is at peace on your adventure. I hope you found your way a long it’s path home to receive all the letters like this one and that you are able to answer my call when I get there. I hope we can meet in the middle of some two lane highway in the clouds and talk about life down below, or everything, or nothing, as I watch the sunset reflect forever in your eyes like I used to. I hope we can laugh trading jokes about the concept of time; or take turns playing songs to each other as we dance under the stars, waiting to see sunrise on the horizon, and make a game of trying to guess what colors it will surprise us with.

Until then, I count my moments, using my time here the best way I know how, as I deposit all of this love I carry for you into the art I create and words I share. I promised I would write your chapters and will continue to do so with every single moment as I try to see those smiles for you, like those you created and loved to see when you shared your smile and laugh with everyone you met. I will try my best, to paint and write those chapters containing all of my love into the smiles of every single person I meet before it is my time see you again.

When it’s finally our time to sit in those clouds on a not so lonely highway, remembering all the years since that night we first met and remind each other how it’s story really went - I’ll know sitting there, with your hand once again in mine, your fingernails painted that bright red you loved - I’m sure - that I did my best to make you proud; as I tell you how proud I am of you, the life of adventures and wonder you lived, the lives you impacted with your story, the world you left more beautiful remembering your smile, and the better man your presence in my life made me for that world and the lives within it.

I remember you every single day and wrote this letter to tell you: that more than anything, I patiently wait to learn how we finish our story, because never in my wildest dreams, could these stars be as beautiful as I remember, all those moments, I spent watching them with you.