Four years ago I was in Tallahassee, at the intersection between the courtyard and the bookstore. The sidewalk was swarming. The sun was hot, burning my bare shoulders. I watched the lights turn from red, to yellow, to green, watched the clouds morph across the sky. I thought of you. I thought of what it would be like if you were there to walk with me…maybe the sun wouldn’t be so hot, the walk so long. And then you called. You sounded flustered, you didn’t even say hello. “We’re going to have a son one day and his name will be Brigsby.” And that was all you said. There’d been no talk of engagement, of marriage. No talk of forever, of the future, of children. We were wrapped up in fighting our own battles, holding on to each other for air, for survival. But in the shadows of our unspoken words, we felt the soul that was waiting, waiting to be born into the world…a piece of you, a piece of me, a piece of the universe where he waited in limbo. You gave him a name and you spoke of him often…things you would tell him, things you would teach him, places you would take him. You loved the thought of him, the divine product of our tangled hearts. For years, you called him by name; For years, you waited for him. And then one day he was real. And on that day, I’d never seen your eyes so clear. That night in the darkness you said his name, you said it once, and you said it loud. “Brigsby.” To the furthest reaches of our minds, our bodies, our souls, of the world…we knew it was him…the child who’d whispered to us in dreams, who’d waited for us for so long. When he was born, you stood behind me, wrapped your arms around mine and kissed my hair. The deepest silence filled the room, seething and alive. The father that had been waiting devoured you that night, every piece of you, a match for the mother who you held in your arms. I watch him look at you, my eyes under your perfect eyelashes, in awe and adoration, in quiet recognition. He was waiting for you all along, waiting to be held to your chest, to run his hands over your face…waiting for the father who would give him the world.
we stood outside, heat from the crumbled cement winding through our ankles. gravestones shimmered in front of us, just beyond the gas station. I wanted to go, I asked you to come with me. your eyes met mine and instead of saying no, you asked for a 12 pack. you didn’t believe I’d saunter in on sky high heels wearing nothing but lace. you didn’t believe I’d push open the dusty gas station door with the 12 pack you had asked for…but I did. your eyes went wide and you laughed, eyes bright, face to the sky. I pulled the car over and just for a second we hesitated, eyeing the broken houses beyond the broken tombstones, the dying vines that were taking over. we walked in silence, reading the names, the dates, picturing their faces. we kneeled at a grave from 1880 and your eyes locked on my face. he died on your birthday. we walked quickly, away from the date craved into stone. once, twice, three times we saw that date, each time my stomach tightened, my jaw clenched. we kept on. 1878, 1892, 1901. A husband who died in 1960, his wife 41 years later. That set heavy on your heart and you held my hand. we looked at their picture, framed between their graves, and you pulled me away. we walked further, my heels sinking into the dried grass, the black sand, eyes shielded from the sun, red hair in a blaze. I fell back, walking slower, lost in thought. you heard my footsteps behind you. “no…” you grabbed my arm and I read the dates as you pulled me onward. born and died on the same day, a baby buried just below our feet. another tiny grave. one month old, two years old, hardly a week. “no. no.” I walked away so quickly I could hardly hear what you said…but I heard the shock, the panic, creeping up into your voice. you were at my side before I ever heard your footsteps, kissing my check. we kept walking, slowly reading dates out loud. 1924, 1899, 1976. I told you I wanted my ashes divided into tiny little lockets and jars, sealed shut, and left in every place we loved each other. you warned me about walking in between the graves when I tread too close, wary should I tempt fate in such a way. we stopped at a grave marker covered in vines and slowly we pulled them away, rubbed decades of dirt from the raised letters…died in world war 1, no family buried near him, still just a boy. we passed a husband and wife buried together, died on the same day, their child buried next to them years later. graves that were purchased and forgotten, owners long dead and buried someplace else. fathers and daughters, an entire family with matching graves. angels and lambs covered in moss. we stood still, facing each other, my head on your chest, the glare of the sun mirrored in your sunglasses, my shoulders on fire.
I can’t count in a day how many times I say I love you. I say it without thinking, like clockwork. When I whisper it in your ear when you sink into the couch after a 13 hour day, I mean I appreciate you. When I yell it to you from the front door as you get into your car with your soccer cleats on, I mean don’t get hurt, please don’t get hurt. When I call it to you as I walk down the stairs, I mean goodbye, I’ll be home soon. It means thank you for making my plate while I hold the baby. It means goodnight and sweet dreams. It means good morning. It means you make me laugh. It means you’re handsome. It means I just need you right now, just need you to be. It means I’m frustrated and loving you makes it better. It means you’re welcome. It means yes, of course, love. It means no, I’m sorry. It means please. It means I’m sad and the tears are coming. It means I’m happy and the tears are coming even faster. It means I’m scared and my hands are shaking. It means I miss you. It means the dinner you cooked was wonderful. It means thank you for emptying the cooler. It means everything inside my heart when the baby’s safe in your arms. But all these simple words, they aren’t enough. I never want the last thing you hear me say be thank you or goodbye. And so I say I love you, I say it with a thousand meanings…loud and fast and soft and slow. And when my voice can’t say it, my eyes do, grey and dark and searching, holding your gaze. Everything I have ever had to tell you, wrapped up in three little words.
we lack self control, the ability to love quietly. completely overcome, overwhelmed, we carve the proof where our hearts were full, where our bodies turned to butterflies. Proof on beaches, waiting for class to start. Proof on trees growing in the Bahamas, proof on the roofs of cars. Proof carved into picnic tables on the coast, where wondering eyes will linger, running their fingers over our initials, dreaming of our perfect love for years and years. Proof in the colorado snow, shining in the moonlight, proof on pancakes, slaved over on a Sunday morning. Proof etched into island sand, drawn onto restaurant table tops. Proof of the days we traveled, the days we loved, the days we were our happiest.
“The greatest thing we’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return”
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Alex, I love you. Every little part of me loves you. My toes love you, my ears love you, my fingers love you…my hair, my knees, my nose all love you. My eyes adore you, my heart needs you. I love your laugh, your smile. I love the way you hug me, the strength in your arms. I love your hands, the way they hold mine. I love your voice, the way you say my name. I love you madly. I love you unconditionally. I love you spontaneously. I love you quietly. I love you happily. I love you without question. I loved you then and I love you now. I will always love you. Always.
Jamie: I might die of excitement before you get home…and that wasn’t sarcastic.
he doesn’t just give hints away. 24 hours, several text messages, several hours of gchat, 15 bad guesses and 50 squats later, I came to the realization that the hint, in fact, was not even a real word. and I told him that. in all caps. ‘depends on your point of view’, he said. the word was backwards. Friday. the surprise was for Friday.
the second hint took me longer to figure out than I’m willing to admit. but…I did figure it out. and when I did I nearly knocked him over. I’ve been harassing him for 4 years to take me to Dinosaur World. and he took off work on Friday to do just that. expect lots of awkward videos and photos of me and t-rex.
I constantly find myself going back to the day that we went to your parents and we had just found out I was pregnant. We sat outside by the pool and before long it had started to rain, blocking out the skies in a white haze. You jumped in the pool and I remember laughing at you…but I didn’t get up…I didn’t even move. You called out to me, asking me to get in, come swim with you in the rain. And I shook my head. You called out to me again, begging me to please get in with you, it will be fun. And I said no. And you knew I would regret that…you jumped out and ran to me, an arm on either side of my chair, dripping water into my lap and across my belly with the baby inside, and you asked me to run in the woods with you. And again, I shook my head. You left me then, let me be, sitting outside with the rain and steam swirling around me, too lost inside my head to even move.
I want to take that day back and swim with you in the rain and run through the woods. I hate knowing that I gave up even a second with you…a second of us.
The way I love you, feel connected to you, comes from somewhere so deep inside my soul that it feels ancient, like I’ve loved you since the beginning of time…living, loving, dying, only to be reincarnated to find each other again, fated by the universe to love each other now, wholly, completely, and without reservation until one by one we watch the stars burn out of the sky above us.
Our wedding was two years ago today. I took a bubble bath and wrote my vows. I snuck back into our house while the boys were out and left Alex a note on our bathroom mirror in red lipstick. It stayed there for a very long time. I wore leopard shoes and my papa’s wedding band. There was cotton candy and peacock feathers and giant fake flowers. There were jello shots and hot chocolate and kegs and sangria. There were lanterns and candles… hundreds of candles. We traded our vows in private, too intimate to be shared with anyone else. We got caught in the rain and Alex ran with me in his arms until we were under cover …and even then he hesitated to put me down. We improvised our first dance. It was a square dance and he picked me up and spun me around. We forgot where we were and that people were watching and we laughed and spun in circles. A little girl asked my dad for a microphone and she sang us a love song under the stars while we cut our cake. There were corn dogs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chicken fingers and bagel bites. We were pulled in every direction, lost in the whirlwind, but we always found our way back, drawn to each other.
We didn’t have fancy table linens and chair covers, expensive centerpieces and dishes. There was no DJ, no florist, no columns or arches. We didn’t have a big wedding party, no scriptures were read at the ceremony. There was no fan fare. Things went wrong and it didn’t matter. The wrong music was played, my dress got dirty…it rained and I forgot my polaroid camera. None of that mattered. Alex was all that mattered. Everything else was superficial.
Two years and nothing has changed. Alex is all that matters…and everything, everything else, is still superficial.
