Uh oh, I think I just grew up

I had one of those magically sad nights, Brooklyn and Broken Social Scene, the parking lot afterwards, the sounds haunting, billowing out of the spires of the Masonic Temple. It was cold, I was underdressed and shivering and we were sitting close, our knees were touching.

It was the most fun I had had with a singular person in some time, no distractions, no pretense, just us, our thoughts and our tenuous connection. One that we wanted to bridge maybe. Maybe in different ways. I can never tell what someone else is thinking, and rarely does it line up with my own.

Later in the night, after narrowly escaping the first chance to jump into something new, something old, it was that way again, familiar jokes and small noises, gentle hands and light possibilities. The moment when it could have been something beautiful and something horrible all at once. And the thoughts that would not stop.

What if all those things had never happened, what if they had but they had meant nothing instead of everything? What if I had never been so vulnerable and so blind? Could we care for each other like we once did? How about as friends? But friends don't think of each other as this, nervous to send emails, shaking when the phone rings. Friends don't kiss or try to. Friends don't pop in once in a while, between sadness, between elation, friends don't miss each other or what they once used to have.

And I floated above us, I saw us, two people who were torn apart and shouldn't have been, or were liberated and never should have been brought back together, though we keep perpetuating it for some reason I will never know. We were going through the motions as if history meant nothing, as if broken love was something that could simply vanish without its acknowledgment of casualties, of which there were many. Pride, dignity, dreams, these things were lost and they were hard fought before they fell broken into pieces, then pounded into dust.

It is hard to forget. It is harder to remember. It is easy to sigh into the arms of someone you miss, you loved, even though they said at one point they hated you, even if it wasn't true, they said it still.

You may have never loved like that before. You may never be able to get it back. That's the point. The point with no point.

And even for one night, it means nothing, because it is too loaded. It is too sad, it is too slow. We're older and we are running out of time. If one or the other cannot take the step to actually remedy, then there is no reason to revisit the past. It is the difference between what feels good in the short term and what will truly be good for you in the long term. You need a change. Not to be reminded of what was lost. You deserve more than that.

Sea change they call it. Realizing you deserve more than someone is willing to give. You thought it would be as sad as the rest. But really, it wasn't sad, not one little bit, at all.