I have decided that, what will be after 27 years, leaving my hometown sometime in 2011 or early 2012.  Right now it’s not a possibility financially, or the wheels may have even started turning on the process a little faster.  I am at a decent place financially soon, and will have a winter and a spring to save up some cash to do it right. Then, I imagine I will want to enjoy the summer here rather than pick up and start one in a new place. One final season to try to make things right where I grew up, for the long haul, and for the sake of the taste in my mouth as I drive away, and look back on it all later.

I was happiest here when I was a kid, visiting my Grandparents for holidays and in the summertime, when my family lived in Colorado. By the time we got back here, life wasn’t very rosy. It continued to have it’s ups and downs all through the remaining 19 years. Leaving to other places for short periods of time never felt like relocating. This has always been home. Looking forward to a day, soon, where that isn’t the case is scary and exciting. Paraphrasing Red from The Shawshank Redemption, it’s the kind of feeling only a free man can feel, a free man at the start of a long journey, with an uncertain conclusion.

I want to get back to being as close to the kind of happy I was here over 20 years ago in the present day, to make one final set of memories here that I care to look back on. I don’t intend on ever coming back here except to visit family. Most of the people I call friends have relocated or were never here to begin with. A smaller group that’s still around have faded into acquaintance status, at best. The relationships I have are fleeting and leave me wanting more. I’ve come to the harsh conclusion that home simply isn’t, anymore.

I want to not only be happy, but enjoy my family the way I did when I was younger. A lot of the ups and downs of the teenage years and the growing up have faded, and I can honestly say we are probably happier as an extended family then we ever have been. Most of the petty fights have ceased. Holidays have been more enjoyable these past couple of years then they had been in the previous 15 years. The stars have aligned to make a perfect time to move on with a smile.

Where am I going from here? Well.. that’s a question for a few months from now, after a new car, and a sold house, and a ton of photographs, and a few tears. One major decision at a time. After years of thinking about it I think I’m finally ready to make this one. There is a whole big world out there, and it aint slowing down.  A small part of me still holds out hope that the right set of stars could also align and keep me here, but time and experience has taught me that probably won’t be the case.

I just want the last chapter to be the best.

I met a girl about a week ago…. I actually first met her 3 years ago, under very hostile circumstances, and didn’t know it until she pointed it out to me. She forgave me for my rudeness back then and decided I was worth her time in the present, and I’m grateful for both of those acts of kindness.  We are both deep, complicated individuals. She is getting through a divorce.  I am getting through a series of life events that have left me dead in places. Will this be a long lasting relationship? Well, the odds aren’t good… but as George Strait said in a great song, Marina Del Rey, we laid a blanket down and loved the world away last Wednesday evening, and it was wonderful.

Fast forward a couple of days.. she has made it clear we aren’t getting serious, I’m ok with that. For starters, not being OK with it isn’t going to change it. Secondly, not being OK with it will end the chances of it happening, and also put the kibosh on the little, fleeting moments we can share until we reach the end of whatever road this is that we’re on.

Tonight she came over again… this time, we didn’t love the world away in the way that requires a blanket, but sat out on the tailgate of my soon to be gone truck, another memory to add to the plethora of good and bad attached to that large purchase I made in 2005. The stars were beginning to fill the sky at twilight, by far my favorite time of day. She looked beautiful as always, the kind of beauty that you can’t describe, or even put into a category, or even really explain why you think so. The kind of beautiful that makes you glad you were born a man. The kind of beautiful that makes you feel like God specifically created you to appreciate. I haven’t had the pleasure of the company of too many of those kind of beautiful girls in my life. In fact, this is probably only number two.

I put my arm around her, and she leaned against my shoulder. It’s an age old tradition that can make any guy with a heart feel like a million dollars. We watched the stars appear and shared a deep conversation, with the subject matter coming from the soul.  For a series of those fleeting moments, I felt like I was in a country song, a romantic comedy, a love story, and a Norman Rockwell painting.  I felt like a kid with a crush again. Nothing really compares to that.

As we sat and discussed music and our upbringings and things we wish we could change, a family walked by. Led by a Grandmother who politely said hello to us as they passed, followed by a second generation man and a toddler bringing up the caboose. Along for the journey was a small dog, looking quite confused as to who exactly was his master on this little adventure.  We looked at each other and both thought the same thing. She said it first.  ”A family. How often do you see that?”  We were a Norman Rockwell painting witnessing another. Somehow I think we both know how much more complicated things are than they have to be, but  at least in her case, I know she’s not ready to surrender the walls she has built around her heart. Sometimes I feel that I feel too much, that things either seem like a Norman Rockwell painting, or magical like Atlantis must’ve been, and other times like it’s just one big heartache. I’m not sure anymore that those feelings are mutually exclusive. Sometimes the curse of the peak is the valley.  I wouldn’t trade feeling like the result of a series of Norman Rockwell brush strokes for anything, though.

I feel like the kid wishing for the circus. I’ve always been a believer, despite the fact I sometimes try to hide that fact. With any glimmer of hope, my starved soul and my always active imagination take over and paint a picture of things that, like Bobby’s circus, never come to be.  I still seem to never learn.

Wishing on a star tonight, and when I talk to the main upstairs, I’m finding myself expecting so little I often just wish for the disappointment to begin before my hopes are sufficiently built up for a crash.  It seems to be the one wish I’m occasionally granted. There are some dreams that still exist, maybe in the part of me where the little boy wishing on a star for them also resides. I hope they never die, but I am thankful that there’s the jaded grown up with little hope left to protect that other side of my psyche from the worst.

I think the most appropriate way to end this short blog is to quote from Michael Keaton’s grown up character in the same movie. “How do people’s lives come to this?”

I’m filing bankruptcy in a month or so, and for a short time I will probably be worse-off financially while I pay lawyers and find a new ride and do maintenance on things that I’ve neglected for too long after I finally have some money in my pocket again. After that, I think my retreat will actually enhance my ability to fight for some happiness. It will give me some freedom I’ve been lacking, if in no other area than financial independence. While I won’t have a lot of the things a lot of others have, I won’t have the burden of any debt, either. That is a feeling I have never known, but one I can assume will only make me feel much more freedom. With the unstable economy, it’s also not a time to really put any faith in any other option.  Sometimes options are good for me.. sometimes, like in this situation, seeing no other road finally helped me come to peace with a lot of hard decisions in a way I always knew I’d be making someday.

And even if there’s only one road to take, it will inevitably lead to another, especially when I have the ability to choose any direction without fear of financial consequences.  I have traveled 63,700 miles in my truck, that I bought brand new when I was 21. I was so proud of that accomplishment I really couldn’t see how one accomplishment cancelled out the possibility of so many others, with so much money going out to one resource. Most of those miles were miserable, although the happy memories and my own sentimentality give the decision to part ways with my truck payment a bittersweet feeling.

So 2010 got off to a slow start, much slower than I anticipated or hoped for.. but I feel the tide turning.  While I still don’t see a clear destiny for myself, for the first time in a long time I have some hope.  I have made some other life changes recently that have aided in that too, including kicking cigarettes and booze. (I’m still a sucker for a nightly cigar, though… but nobody’s perfect)

And once again there was a girl that brought a temporary spark.  I’ve heard that it’s better for things to burn out than to fade away, but I’ve had it both ways in the relationship department, and I’m not sure that’s true in that regard. Given the choice I suppose, I wouldn’t choose either.

I think we all have songs like that in our life, that if played in the background of life’s events or memories would describe the things that are happening to us as good if not better than words ever could. 

There are songs on life’s soundtrack that remind me of a certain time or place in my life, and there are events that occur that seem pre-destined for music that I have already heard but never quite appreciated before. Sometimes the music comes first, sometimes the experience. Once in a while, lightning strikes and you hear a song for the first time that clearly was heaven sent to help you make sense out of, celebrate, or mourn something that is happening at exactly the same time.  These, like One Step Up by Bruce Springsteen, or Everytime I Hear Your Name by Keith Anderson, or I Love This Bar by Toby Keith (haha) for me, become the tracks in which we would place on our own life’s soundtrack if we ever got the chance to release one, or would accompany the montages in a movie made about our life. 

Check Yes Or No,  a sweet and nostalgic George Strait record, brings me back to my second/third grade crush, and was one of those that was released at about the same time the events transpired.  It has remained a song that can always make me smile and think of simpler times.

Dancing With Dreams by Phil Vassar is a reminder of a time where the alcohol and the friendship flowed freely for me, in a time where life had broken my heart on too many levels to do anything but sit back with a pitcher of beer (or two) and let the storm pass. I was lucky enough to have a few friends along for the ride that summer, and it was the closest friendship I have ever felt, before or since. It also fits the story of that fall and beyond.. friends that drift apart… “Ten years ago May, we all drank to the future, and all went our separate ways”….

Just To See You Smile an up tempo yet also haunting tune by Tim McGraw, throws me back into countless times in my life where I have went against better long term judgement or lack of financial resources to make myself or somebody else (more times than not one of them is a girl, and we’re both smiling at least temporarily) smile.  The song is about a romance, and there is one girl who made her appearance in my 17th year on earth that this song reminds me of more than any other, but it’s basic story is true of so many experiences in which I have allowed myself to smile and live for the moment.

Ocean Front Property, another George Strait classic, reminds me of my old hometown in Colorado and being about 2 to 4 years old, not because of anything the song says or is, but simply because it was my favorite song during that time.  (I turned out to love country music, and being anywhere near the ocean as I got older, so maybe it had some influence on me

There are even entire albums of music that, like Clint Black says in State of Mind , take me to another place and time. Whatever life hands me, whether it be lemons, lemonade or limes for my Corona, I always turn to music to help me celebrate or cope, and I’m always listening for that next tune on my soundtrack.  The best, though, are the songs,  whether they be sad or celebratory, that fondly remind me somehow of  somebody who meant or means a lot to me.  When I close my eyes someday, and the music plays over flashbacks of the rollercoaster ride I’ve been on, and I’m sure much I have yet to see, those will be the scenes which matter the most.

But, perhaps the fondest memory of those two grade school years is a girl (what a surprise) named Sara.

I don’t remember exactly how, I think it was simply proximity and chance- (plus, she was beautiful). She was the shortest girl in the class, I was the tallest boy. She had long, silky black hair like a mysterious gypsy, but the eyes and smile of an angel, with a button nose. I fell head over heels for Sara on the first day of second grade.  I don’t know how I pulled it off, but that was one girl I liked who I managed to get to like me back.  The teacher would let me hand out the placards quite often and I would always seat Sara next to me. On days where somebody else handed them out, I would try to sneak over to the pile and place Sara’s card next to mine in the stack.  I clearly remember a couple of times of devastation when the teacher would catch on, and shuffle the cards after I had made my move. 

My fondest memories of Sara, however, aren’t in the classroom but on the playground. At lunch, she would put her head on my shoulder as we finished our milk and waited for the bell to ring that would let us outside for our recess. When we got out there, we would chase each other around and play games I wish I could remember with more clarity. Sara was a small girl, full of fire, but there was a lot of pain hidden behind it, I could tell even back then.  From the time I was six years old, I had always wanted to be Superman, and a small part of the reason I liked Sara so much was that she always made me feel like her Superman.  As the year progressed, things got more and more serious between us. We would get married, we decided, and even had my friend Richard conduct a ceremony. Being the traditionalist I am, I had to get her a ring. First, I settled on a series of gumball machine engagements (a lot of which were from Shakey’s Pizza, bought with Dad’s quarters and approval. He  hadn’t been too kind to the women in his life up to that point, and he always encouraged me to do the sweetest things for Sara. It’s one of the things I admire most about him looking back, and cherish the most, too.) 

Sara didn’t care for the gumball machine rings much. They would turn her hands odd colors and broke easily. Finally, I talked my Mom into taking me to Wal-Mart to purchase Sara a real ring out of the jewelry case. I remember it having a green stone and being fairly glamorous for a second grade romance, I also remember paying with a ten dollar bill- so maybe those memories are best left a little muddy.

I remember giving it to her, though, like it was yesterday. I remember  the smile on her face, her gushing about how beautiful it was and how sweet I was. I remember our second grade teacher, a very warm and charming woman, smiling at me with the kind of smile a woman of any age can give a man of any age with a very clear message- you did good.  It was what I refer to as an Atlantis moment for me, something so beautiful the mere thought of it can fill me with tears of joy and sadness, simultaneously.  And I remember her losing the ring as we went back into the classroom, it was a little too big for her and it fell off as our class marched single file back into school. We were both heartbroken. It wasn’t my first heartbreak, nor hers, and unfortunately for both of us it would be far from our last.  There are a million other little memories- but the day Sara lost the ring is just about where they stop.  The only clear memory I have of our budding second grade romance beyond that probably happened in third grade, when I made her cry. I don’t remember why, but I know I was the cause of her tears. That was a moment that simply fills me with grief, and one even all these years later I would give anything to take back.  After my mom re-married and moved me away a year later, it was the one I thought would be my last with Sara. How grateful and yet still somehow haunted I am, that it wasn’t afterall.

Flash forward about sixteen years.  I have been engaged and un-engaged. Twice.  Had two near brushes with death, worked in jobs ranging from managing a multi million dollar shop to pushing carts at Wal-Mart, became a big brother, unfortunately with a step mother who didn’t approve of my status as such. Became an alcoholic. Struggled with women, booze, happiness and self esteem.  Always lived life with an open heart, inviting anybody and everybody to trample on it at their own whim. Finally came to peace with my place in the world, to some extent, found a job that I enjoy- even if it’s likely not a career- and dug myself a nice little rut following the latest failed engagement, which ended in May. I would work, return home, sleep, eat, and repeat. It was a formula that kept away only the worst of the blues- and not for very long.  By the first of September I was nearing a breakdown. Life had no happiness, and even the sadness was muted, so I felt barely alive.   

There were very few Sara sightings over the years in reality, although in my dreams she was never far. I had dreams of us as children and as adults. Dreams of her with flowers in her hair, dreams of us back on that playground saying our I-Do’s. Too many to even remember, let alone keep track of. All of them fond and all of them- again in the words of Anthony Hopkins from the movie- like Atlantis must’ve been.

When I did run into Sara over the years- a couple times during my tenure at Wally World, once more late at night at a gas station, it was never the right moment to re-connect. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did. I didn’t want it to be the “Oh yeah, I remember you.”…. awkward silence… “Nice seeing you again, bye!” .  It was worth much more than that to me.  I always hoped a day would come where it would be the prime location and right time to really plant a seed that might send us back on a path to friendship. But for sixteen years, it never came, and Sara was relegated to my dreams.  Part of my reluctance to just walk up and give her a big hug was my guilt, too.. about being the cause of her tears in that last memory of her. She faded from my daytime thoughts, I must admit, except when things would jog my memory- like the George Strait song “Check Yes or No” coming on the radio, or an occasional drive by the school where she dared me to kiss her behind a huge Oak tree my Grandpa’s class had planted when he attended Washington Elementary.  But when the night fell, Sara would creep into my psyche quite often. I was able to follow her life from a distance, and I knew it wasn’t an entirely happy one.  The final time I saw her before 2009, was in the middle of 2008 or so, while actually following what turned out to be her husband, suspecting him of shoplifting at my store.  I was heartbroken when I saw her on the receiving end of a “hey, honey” comment from this creep.  Inside of her shopping cart was a little girl, a memory in miniature, who had the eyes and the long wispy hair of her mother.  That’s when I finally realized, that time had marched on. Sara was a married woman with a child, and there was no point in trying to believe that there would be any other last memory of her other than her tears falling on her rosy cheeks in the third grade. And the dreams stopped, too, for what amounted to be a little over a year.  It seemed I had finally found closure to one long lost memory. One down, several to go.

Until September 5, 2009.

It was a bad day. It had really been a bad summer, even though for most of the summer you would have never got me to admit anything of the sort. It had been bad in that it had been uneventful, at a time when eventful times were in high demand and short supply for me. I broke up with my fiance in May, and although after the initial period of shock and dismay it was a relief, it still left me very lonely.  When we first split up, I cleaned a lot- my house, my truck, my office at work after I had clocked out for the day- anything to keep me busy and away from the silence of being at my house and not being a busybody. That worked for a while. Then, I turned to the internet, worked on some web design projects, worked more day shifts at work and recorded Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity everynight as I would grill hamburgers outside. That lasted for a little while. Then, came the silence.  August was a tough month. A relationship I hoped would go somewhere fizzled, a new found surge of shoplifters at my store (and me catching them, of course) faded back into a normal amount of action at work, things got boring and stale in a quick manner. And then, I was left to organizing my thoughts.  Cleaning up your insides isn’t nearly as easy or as tidy as cleaning a house, a truck or an office, and I didn’t really want to try… and at this moment, I do even less really, yet here I am.

The night of September 5th, I thought of Sara.  Out of the blue. I turned to Facebook and MySpace, the fastest way to find anyone under age 40.  “Sarah (Last name purposely omitted)” I typed in the search box. No results.  Maybe I just wanted to see her face again, knowing it would make me smile. I still thought she was married, so romantic thoughts weren’t running around at all. Don’t know why exactly she came up in my conciousness, but she did, and I couldn’t find her. I remember feeling utterly disgusted at being alive that day, and turned to bed early so I could start a fresh day sooner. I curled up in my bed for a change (I usually sleep on my loveseat- quite comical to see I would imagine- but a lot less lonely than a full size bed all to yourself) and then Sara re-entered my dreams, too.

I was giving her a birthday card.  She was a grown up now, and so was I in this dream.  Everything but her voice, that was channeled from a second grade memory. Even her choice of words, too.  “No Silly!’  she told me, throwing the card back at me, and pointing to the envelope where I had written “Happy Birthday Sarah” in big black letters. “You don’t spell it like that! Knock off the H!” 

And I woke up September 6th, 2009 with a start… almost running to the computer.  All these years I had seen Sara in my dreams, constantly creating questions.. and when I couldn’t find her, I got the answer there too. How could I have not remembered that it was Sara, with no H?

Back to the search bar. This time, the first result that popped up, was the girl I had seen just an hour before in my dream, as beautiful as the day I saw her with the sun shining down on her face on the first day of second grade, and still just as in love with her, too.   I hit “Add As a Friend” without a second thought. 

Later on that evening, I got what I had been waiting sixteen years for, a message from my long lost puppy love.

Of coarse i remember you! how have you been? i have to say that you are too kind thinking im lovely! i dont always look like that just on days that i have time do prepare! keep in touch mister isaacson!

My heart leapt.  I smiled a smile that I haven’t seen on my face before in my adulthood, and can’t remember the last time I had it on even in my younger years.  Nostalgia mixed with butterflies very much set in present day. There are really no words to describe it, how I felt that evening. It was like an awakening…. a feeling I had really only gotten close to the previous December during a self-help type class I attended.  In less than 24 hours, I had went from the depths of despair to the highest of mountains… and even though I knew it wasn’t a feeling that could realistically last, even under the best circumstances, it was a relief… at the very worst, I had something to look forward to that at the same time reminded me of great things from my past.

We talked for a long time. She filled me in on her heartbreak, I filled her in on mine. She was divorced… I told her I hadn’t gotten any better at handing out rings over the years. To my great relief, she had no recollection of the tears I made her cry way back when.  She also didn’t talk about the good times very much. She professed to remember me, and she gave enough evidence that was true, but it was a small, yet passing let down that she didn’t seem to hold our collective memories in quite the same esteem I did. Still, I gave myself permission to be happy simply that In some small way I was living out a Hollywood script I had seen so many times, and my life hadn’t mirrored Hollywood very often.

Our talk progressed from the internet to texting. The night before my new phone, a Blackberry I had wanted for two years, came in… I could barely get reception on the Zach Morris/Saved By The Bell era phone that was serving as my interim replacement to the one that went bye-bye at the bottom of the Green River on a rafting trip.  I drove into town to tell her goodnight, and ended up in a gas station parking lot chatting with my long lost new friend for the better part of three hours (the old phone got no reception at my house)  Two nights earlier my life had been mundane and boring at my house and anywhere I might choose to go in town. Now, I was sitting in a dark vehicle with nothing more than an ancient cell phone to keep me company, and having the time of my life. My heart continued to soar.  We made plans to meet in person for the first time in nearly two decades the next evening.

September 9th was like a flashback, a day filled with so much happiness I can barely believe it happened less than a month ago.  I woke to the sun shining and the signs of an Indian Summer, much like the one that brought out Sara’s beauty so long ago. I went into town, “Check Yes or No” blaring on my stereo, and got my new cell phone, and was like a kid at an arcade, (although this gadget takes more quarters to operate than even the 1993 version of my dad- overly playful and making up for lost time- would have consented to)   One of the first phone calls on my new phone was from Dad, setting up lunch for that afternoon.  We eat and talked like it was old times.  I went to work that afternoon with the weight of the world off my shoulder’s and instead pulling my lips into a smile from ear to ear.  One co-worker, who was critical of the ex-fiance, told me I had an extra spring in my step. None of it really makes sense, but the simple interaction I had that seems so ordinary on the surface awakened something that had apparently been oppressed, and that small part of my reawakened fond memories took the rest of it with me that day.  Work turned out to damper my mood a bit, but even back in reality the world seemed like a nicer place to be. When I got off work, I nervously smoked a cigar and drove to Sara’s house.  

She was sitting on the front porch, smoking a Marlboro Smooth, waiting for me, just like I hoped she’d be. I got out of my truck and gave her a hug, and soon joined her in the burning of tobacco, talking about all kinds of subjects that popped up.  We immediately had a closeness as if no time had passed at all. 

That night was magic. I met her daughter, whose personality reminds me even more of her mom than her looks. She is a sweet but very straight forward girl of four years old, with a ton of imagination and wonder in her eyes. We played Super Mario Brothers, and the little girl teased me- at my own instigation- about losing to her mom in the game.  I told her one of my favorite kid friendly jokes- about a chicken not crossing the road, because he’s chicken- and making the four year old giggle- if it was at me or with me is imaterial-  it further widened my smile. We laughed and carried on like little kids- all three of us- well into the night and nearly until dawn. As she was growing tired, her little girl sat next to me and put her head on my shoulder, just as her mom had done all those years ago.  The little girl looked over at me and announced that she and I were now friends. I wholeheartedly agreed.  I had rediscovered my attraction for Sara, and had made a new friend in the process in the four year old. Kids always bring out the best and warmest part of my personality, and Sara supplied the butterflies and the adrenaline. It was a night that left me with renewed faith in the simple, wonderful things and surprises in life, just three short days after I had nearly given up hope.

And as the night unfurled, Sara’s head was once again on my shoulder, and my arms around her, a blanket covering us as we went to sleep and I kissed her forehead. It was the most innocent night I had ever spent in my adult life with a female, but it was the most genuine attraction and affection I had ever felt, too.  I woke up the next morning and kissed her on the forehead again before I took off for work, wondering if I was still in my hometown, or in Atlantis.

The next night was just as magical, if not moreso. The little girl was asleep and a built in babysitter in Sara’s roommate was available that night, so the fun became more of a grown up nature. We sipped Captain Morgan Rum- sometimes I did more than sip it- and watched a Seth Rogen movie… my favorite new actor. Things continued to seem like a fairy tale, and there were honestly moments I could barely believe I was where I was, with who I was with.  

During a smoke break from the movie, outside, I had a brief flashback. It was 1993 again, and Sara was behind the huge Oak tree in the playground. She was upset with me…. I was too scared to kiss her.  I had given her all the lottery tickets I had earned for my good behavior that week (each Friday, our second grade teachers would auction off various items- with those who had been on their best behavior that week with the most chances to win)  “You give me all your chances, but that’s not good enough.” I remember her telling me… I wanted to kiss her, more badly than I wanted anything, but was too shy to go through with it.  When the flashback was over, I looked down at Sara sitting on the steps of her back porch, the moonlight and the streetlights illuminating her eyes, the smoke rising from her mouth… so much like a lady, so much like a child.  I pulled her to her feet, behind a much smaller tree than the one in the flashback- and got my second chance at my first kiss. It was beautiful and sweet and soft, and my heart was so whole for a moment that it almost ached at the subtle knowing that this was all somehow too good to be true.

 Before the movie was even complete, we decided we should go for a drive. I took her to the place I associate with the lowest and happiest times of my adult life- the storage unit where I used to live, at least the deserted dirt parking lot in front of it. With little streetlights, the stars were bright as diamonds and we sat in the bed of my truck under a blanket, listening to the CD I had burned with beautiful music that reminded me of the beautiful girl in my arms.  I kissed her again, and she endeared herself to me that much more by pulling me back in everytime I would release.  We had our grade school crush, and at that moment we were like teenagers underneath the stars, kissing as if there would be no next time,  the music from my truck stereo filling the night with a soundtrack I will never, ever forget. I melted into her arms and she melted into mine and everything was right with the world.

We awoke the next morning curled up in my bed, her soft skin warm in my arms. I knew right then I loved Sara, loved her for what she was to me all those years ago and what she was to me in that moment, and loved her for all the positive things and the life she brought out in me during our brief re-connection as adults. And in that moment I also knew that it wouldn’t last.  Like the seasons and the sunshine in the Robert Frost poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay.

Sara and I spent two  more nights together, the details of which would sound redundant… simply, it was great, and I still knew somehow it had an expiration date- and likely one that was sooner than I could expect or recover from.  And the past continued to repeat itself, too…. and it can never be all Atlantis in that regard, either.  Although some weekends with my dad would be filled with visits to Shakey’s Pizza, watching him play Handball and him taking me swimming, and the countless loop of Kindergarten Cop and Bing Cherries, a lot of other weekends were left with me sitting on my mom’s couch, staring out the bay window of our living room waiting for a Red Chevy Truck that would never arrive.  He was rarely sorry about it, either… sometimes I wouldn’t even get the copout of a made up excuse. It was usually women, with him, if he was chasing one and a Friday night wasn’t convenient, he simply would no show. 
Before our new time together was through, Sara would once again bring me back into memories of my boyhood- but this time, rather than the time I played Superman to Sara’s Lois Lane on the playground, or the time I begged my Grandma to take me on a walk on Sara’s street during summer vacation, to get a glimpse of her, she reminded me of the times I sat, fruitlessly, waiting for my old man to never show up.  We had planned a night at my house with some spirits and some music, and as I sat on my front porch with a cigar, and then another, and then eventually several drinks of the same rum I had wanted to share with her that evening, waiting for a vehicle, and a person I loved and desperately wanted to see, to never arrive.  It isn’t all Atlantis.

I didn’t press the issue when we talked later. It wasn’t a big deal to her, just like it never was to Dad. I am used to that kind of thing, too used to it maybe.  I don’t have any ill feelings at being stood- up,  and I know I didn’t do anything wrong…  our short time together sixteen years after our playground wedding was just good timing, I think…. the timing I had always been waiting for. Finally got something right in the timing department. I caught her at a moment where I believe she was vulnerable a bit, and god knows I was, and also at a time when things in her life were temporarily slowed down. She works two jobs and goes to school, and has a darling and precocious four year old to raise.  To push too hard my way into that environment would not only be unfair, but also unhealthy.  I am forever thankful for the day I met Sara, the time we spent together back then and in present time, for my second shot at the first kiss I had always regretted not taking, and for waking up with her in my arms.  And my last memory with Sara wasn’t tears falling down her cheeks, and I hope and believe it won’t be  the tears that fell down mine.  It Isn’t all Atlantis, for sure, but there may be more moments that make me feel as if I am in someplace magical. If taking the bad when I have to means the good will be as good as it was during the mid days of September, 2009, I will take the heartbreak with the Atlantis, anyday.

The co-worker who I did know I would be meeting there, Micheal, is a 30-year-old gay man.  I’ve worked with Mike almost a year now, and have grown quite fond of him. Our differences in lifestyles has never been an issue in our budding friendship and if anything it’s nice to have a guy to relate women problems to who sees things from a different perspective. Mike is a tall and lanky guy, with a quiet disposition and a listening ear, who hasn’t had the best of times in life. Also somebody who I tend to gravitate to.  As Jack Nicholson so aptly put it in the movie As Good As It Gets  “Some people have great stories- about lakes, and noodle salad. Just nobody in this car.”  That’s the car I tend to ride in and the people you meet inside are usually much more worth knowing than those with the noodle salad stories.

Mike didn’t get off work until ten, so I showed up at the bar around 10:30. When I walked in, for the first time in a long time past 9 o’clock, there was no band playing at my bar. The crowd was sparse, and right in the middle of the bar at a prominent table was Evan and his wife, with an almost finished pitcher of beer. The smile that appeared on my face was one I wish I could have photographed. It’s nice to see people whose company you enjoy who must obviously also enjoy yours, not only showing up to the bar I casually invited them to but waiting well past the average time someone would wait for even the best of friends. 

Mike soon joined us. I got the sensitive issue of politics out-of-the-way right off the bat, as no meeting between Evan, his wife and I is ever complete without at least a short discussion. Mike is of a different political persuasion than the other three of us, so I wanted his pain to end as soon as possible and for the beer drinking to begin thereafter. The political discussion was as benign as possible and swiftly ended, and the pitchers began to empty. The subtle things you can learn about people in a relaxed scenario, where nobody is looking at a watch or worrying about a cell phone ringing are quite deep and powerful. Evan, his wife told me, hadn’t drank their entire marriage until after he beat his cancer. It gave him a new lease on life, and it “mellowed him out alot.”  I was also regaled with the story of the couple’s recent vacation overseas and the Mrs. telling me how she thought it was absolutely awful that no woman has scooped me up yet. I knew I liked her.

After the political discussion was over, Mike fit right into the conversation. The other three of us, because of our political conviction, would often be labeled judgmental or hostile towards someone of Mike’s background.  Between episodes of Mike and Evan playing pool, I told Vicki about Mike’s sexual orientation, simply as the quickest and most obvious way of avoiding any further political talk.  A resounding, “I Don’t care! He’s a nice guy.” was my response. Once again, I knew I liked these people.

As the beer and the laughs and the stories flowed, it seemed as if all four of us- ranging in age from 25 to 62- straight and gay, Republican and Democrat, were long lost friends. It was a conversation and a companionship of effortless ness, and as Mike and Vicki danced away to Alan Jackson’s She’s Gone Country (something I swore to never tell Mike’s boyfriend) I thought that maybe the four of us just accomplished something the whole country needs to master, and we hadn’t even made any deliberate attempt to do anything but just have a few beers.  It’s not about forcing any issues, that’s where they get it all wrong.  Nobody there set out to ‘accept’ somebody of a different lifestyle or made any bones or big deals about it. We were all nice people, as Vicki pointed out, so who cares.  And in the span of a couple hours and a few pitchers of Coors Light (it’s amazing how four people from different walks of life can also love one brand of beer) I learned profound things about people who I hope will continue to be in my life for a long time.  It was a very special, ordinary night. It doesn’t get much better than that.