Somewhere, stuffed in a box heaped with memories from the first, distant years, there exists a written account of the following; more accurate, and most likely daubed with liberating tears of joy. These here are memories that persist, after fifteen years.
A previous post details the moment that I knew I could no longer make it on my own, about one month before the events of this post. I discovered I wanted to make an attempt to spend the rest of my life with a girl I knew from choir, a girl who was scheduled to slip from my life in just over a month and a half, when I would graduate from our college and be perfectly in bounds to leave her behind for her own senior year, potentially finding her years later on Facebook, and wishing her birthday greetings only because the system was responsible enough to keep the date. I thank God that that didn’t end up happening.
I had no fears or worries
So, how do we get to “the events of this post”? After that senior recital, I was free. I had no fears or worries about final exams and final papers, those would all be fun for me, and work in those classes would be winding down anyhow. Two spring concerts were equally exciting. After all, I aspired to a life of music-making, what better way to represent four years of hard work to that end.
And this is where my methodical brain usually takes over. I often work hard on one thing until it is stable, and then can’t help but pick up another project, forever trying to get things done. In my more “productive” periods, I call this a virtue. At times, though, it serves as a detriment. To this day, my wife (oops, spoiler) wishes I would just sit down for a full 22-minute sitcom once in a while. For my mind, there is nothing harder. I’ve got to be prepared for the next appointment, follow the critical path on several parallel projects, and get back to work. And so, I said “my methodical brain usually takes over” because that is precisely what did not happen that April.
1998-me would not have understood 1999-me in the slightest. When was I going to resume getting things done? 3 3/4 years of excellent work, and the crowning achievement led to–
There were moments
That’s where it gets tricky. Most of the days from April and May are a bit of blur. I continued to go to all my classes, and participate fully in ensembles, but I probably found a bit less need to hit the practice room every afternoon for two hours. I probably scaled back the amount of library visits I’d make throughout the day. Surely my grad school would have the same reference books and scores. How did I fill my time, then? You know, it’s hard to recall exactly. But there were moments.
Like when I left campus with her for the first time, in my aqua Dodge Shadow with a roof unashamedly full of peeled paint, on an emergency trip across state lines to buy yo-yo string. When we cut out paper shapes, and pasted them to my dorm window, pointing across the street to her building, like a modern-day Stonehenge that would reveal a light on the chosen day. When we sat on that riverside bench where so many crack-users had sat before us, and she told me of the final moments of her mother’s life, the mother-in-law I would never meet. Moments like that help to prove the oversimplification of my previous post. In it I said that March 27, 1999 was “the evening I learned that I didn’t want to be alone anymore”. But the truth is, the decision to spend a life with someone special does not happen on a particular night. It’s a choice that I have confirmed everyday since.
I was perfect for that night
The next red-letter day in our relationship happened on April 29. That Thursday night we went on what we call our first date, seeing Hilary and Jackie at the Capitol Theatre where she worked on weekends. To be honest, 2014-me doesn’t fully understand 1999-me either. What I likely wore and said that night, how I would have chosen to act. We’re programmed for progressive filtering of personal memories. A day later, the good and the bad co-exist, but as the sands of time act on those less respectable behaviors and awkward moments, the good tend to jam the sieve, as the bad are washed away, often forever. For that reason, now, it just doesn’t matter, because I was perfect for that night. Everything was perfect that night.
For me, March 27, 1999 was the slash in a BC/AD calendar system. And, in the coming months I will continue to notice fifteen-year milestones on this side of the slash. So many years out, now, this was the most extreme case of senior-itis I can imagine. I know full-well that if my mind had had any say in the matter, it would have asked me, that spring, “What’s with this detour? Don’t you feel like getting something done?”
It’s so clear to me now, this is exactly what I was doing.