Tom Higgenson looked straight at me as he sang the beautiful lyrics that reminded me of my middle school days. I swear he did. I was in the front row, admiring the Plain White T’s and their beautiful voices mostly singing songs I had never heard. We made eye contact as he sang with his heavenly voice. Other students called the concert mediocre, but I had a wonderful time.
I captured their most popular song on video with my phone. Occasionally I look back on the event and I listen to the song, this version containing more of the crowd singing along than the song I originally recorded off of the radio with my cheap MP3 player as a seventh grader. I love listening to this song as it never gets old and always stirs up nostalgia.
I remember riding home on the bus and listening to this song in my cocoon of a seat. Propped up against the window with my backpack on the other side, feet on the seat and head down, I absorbed the words. I thought to myself how sweet the song was, but how long distance never works. “Why bother?” I thought, “If you have to go to such great lengths, then it’s obviously not meant to be”.
Many changes would happen over the course of the six years between 2008 and 2014. I found love in 2010 and had my heart broken in 2013. While many problems lead up to the eventual breaking point, long distance was the deciding factor in the relationship’s predestined failure. This reaffirmed my juvenile beliefs. Long distance does not work. If long distance is a factor, it is obviously not meant to be. I now believed that no matter how strong love is, it could not last the test of physical separation.
I found true love in 2014. It came in the form of the most wonderful man to ever walk into my life so perfectly yet so unexpectedly. I had experienced loving someone before, but not being in love in such a powerfully pure way. I fell in love nearly instantly, knowing from the moment our eyes met that our romance was inevitable.
I swore I would never let myself be hurt by long distance again. Long distance was pointless because it meant miscommunication and forgetting the love once shared when physical barriers were not in place. Long distance was the cruel demon that had the talent of finding the weaknesses of a relationship and proceeding to destroy it in a ruthless quest to end happiness. The situation was comparable to a death wish. Long distance was a grenade, ready to explode, leaving memories in the dust and shrapnel of the explosive break ups it caused.
Long distance scared me when I met him that March night. Long distance scared me as he tenderly kissed me in April on a Sunday. Despite my previous thoughts on the matter, long distance no longer scared me as Tom Higgenson sang the adoring words of his love for Delilah. This song, restoring my faith in love that could survive struggles, made me realize that if the bond between two is strong enough, long distance could possibly work.
I miss him dearly, even though it was only last week that we said our goodbyes and hugged one last time before I drove to Vermont and he flew to Pennsylvania. I was not scared of long distance when he held me in his arms. I was not afraid of our love dissolving into thin air. I was no longer terrified of this heartbreak I had once feared. This monster, long distance, once like a vicious lion, became a tiny kitten.
This kitten is always with me. When I think of him, the kitten purrs and cuddles up against me. When I remember the sweet words he said to me and the way he ran his fingers through my hair as he told me he loved me, the kitten curls up and sits with my memories. Occasionally, the pain is hard and the kitten nibbles at my ankles. I try to soothe it, petting it as I recall the happy times moments we share together and the love I have for him. The pain is annoying, yet sometimes its teeth are sharp enough to cause me to cry. I know in the end, the kitten means well and the pain is temporary, but I cannot wait until August when I will no longer be its caretaker.
Long distance is mild in comparison to the dastardly behemoth my mind had made it out to be. Perhaps this is because the love between me and my Delilah is strong enough and we are willing. I consider myself lucky to experience such love in a way that is unbreakable. I consider myself lucky to understand that long distance is nothing more than what the mind perceives it to be. I consider myself lucky to be his.
No comments:
Post a Comment