• Last track on YHF... •
2007-11-02 - 10:47 p.m.

It's always the details, the little things...

I've felt unsettled and frustrated for much of the day today. My dreams lately have been anxiety-ridden. I've got the nagging feeling that my life is proceeding without me.

That doesn't mean that it's proceeding in a bad way, of course. I'm just an only child who really likes being in control of things, and often thinks he's the smartest smartypants on a matter.

I felt similarly about five years ago. Well, I've felt like this several times in the interim, but it's the instance half a decade ago that's of note.

Five years. 1,800 some-odd days.

It started with an email titled "I'm not a stalker I swear" from a certain blue-eyed young lady. Even reading that short missive, I had an inkling that my life was about to change.

I don't want to give it a false sense of drama, but I knew from the outset that Amy was going to change my life in ways I couldn't really control. In those first few days, as emails turned into lengthy chats, I wrestled with the choice I had to walk away.

And I could have. I really could have. I felt God giving me the option. I remember one particular walk back to my apartment, standing on a street corner that has since been eliminated by 'campus improvements', and feeling my choice as if it were a tangible door I was poised to step through.

I didn't walk away. Obviously.

So what does my opening statement have to do with anything?

In the last 5 months, I've seen a litany of 'little things' that are pleasant coincidences in my relationship with Melissa. In a basic personality sense, there are some commonalities between her and Amy, but that's not really what I'm talking about.

Sitting at the kitchen table playing Collapse with her mom offering me juice.

That's what I'm talking about. It's such an innocuous thing to all of you, but it's a huge, titanically important thing to me. Because it's those hours at her kitchen table that held the long talks about life, death, sickness, love, hope, fear, and a future. The last real talk I had with Amy was at that kitchen table, before I left for England.

And when, out of nowhere, Melissa started playing Collapse while sitting with me at her parents' table, I could only sit and be stunned.

I've noted here, in reference to another individual, that expectations are not reality. I'm glad to have someone whose reality is far more interesting than expectations.