it was like bumping into a very old friend who you haven't seen in a long time and them smiling at you and saying something like "the price on these apples, huh?" and shaking their head as if they've seen you just yesterday and nothing's changed, except that maybe their hair is thicker and they haven't got any slight crinkles at the corners of their eyes and there's a certain something—a knowing—in their gaze that's missing. they're young, innocent. and yet, they still like you.
there in the passenger seat of a silver nissan altima, as i let the 100 degree atlanta air scorch my face and warbled to the dear loverboy beside me who i never knew back then, i look at her in the side mirror and say: hello. with some surprise because i haven't seen her in a long time, and i'm shocked actually that i remember her at all.
i do remember.
i remember that she was happy. she liked singing loudly in the car back then, too. but not loudly in a goofy way, just loudly for the pleasure of singing. she liked soccer, but not practicing, which was kind of how she felt about most pastimes. she liked papa john's pizza but not as much as pizza hut stuffed crust. and she thought apple pie was best eaten cold for breakfast on one's birthday.
and i realize that we still have some things in common. i still love reading more than almost anything else. furry babies (animals that is) still make me drool and also make me feel like my heart might break at the sight of them. i still love the piano and i still can't play it. i still dream of having bunches of kiddos and living in europe and speaking french to them. i still love to scribble nonsense in notebooks and i still don't like anyone looking at them. autumn is still my favorite season and the airport is still one of my favorite places.
but there's so much that's changed. for a long time i haven't believed that girl still exists. i haven't believed i could ever be happy and carefree like that again. over these past ten years or so, i've felt so many things, but happiness wasn't among them.
it was such a normal little saturday outing. we were making a rare trek over to home park for coffee at octane and donuts at sublime (actually i had been there that morning for a little 5k run. yeah, no biggie. wheeze, wheeze), and afterwards we wandered over to the humane society, because i can't ever be on howell mill road (where we met mr. wolf larson in march of 2010 and stars collided) without at least just looking at about a hundred and one doggies and kitties begging us with their eyes to take them home—especially one sad and pathetic little black lab with the saddest, most knowingest of eyes and shakiest of front legs who stole loverboy's sad-pathetic-things-ever-loving heart. thankfully, my heart, much more stalwart and impervious as it is, could see that she would probably be mopey and needy, and really, i think we've got more than enough needs going on as it is in this house, so we left empty-handed.
and then driving home, i looked down and saw that my legs were nonchalantly propped up on the seat, not clenched rigidly together as usual when mr. loverboy drives. and there was something quiet and small, but real and living, inside where once there had been a hole, a darkness.
and oh! just those few minutes in the car. it gave me such hope. hope that i'll once again come upon that girl from long ago who dreamed up imaginary pet wolves, who was most entranced in a wood full of fog at dusk, who believed that nyc was perennially covered in snow and that running for the sake of running was fun, that pen and paper were enough to keep a friendship going, that nothing was more romantic than the french language and also luke skywalker. the girl who first danced to the spice girls' wanna be my lover in her best friend's room in junior high while applying dark red lipstick. the girl who didn't understand pain or sadness or bitterness, not really.
i remembered that once there was a girl. and she gave me hope.
