I am a rock under the stars.

It is dark and warm.  The cool water shimmers and swirls in front of me, calling me to fall into it.  I close my eyes and imagine my body breaking the surface and sinking like a rock, cutting through with no resistance.  The soft, surging liquid would swallow me, and I’d be gone. Just a rock with no choice in which way to fall.

There’s a slight breeze, but it doesn’t quite push off the way it feels as though the air is actually touching me. It’s the perfect kind of warm; it is the kind of warm a girl who grew up in the country can appreciate. The kind of warm that used to waft through my screened windows and call me out onto the front porch to stare at the moon and dream with my eyes open.

I’m sitting on the back deck at my parents’ house. It is not the house I grew up in. That is about 2 miles from here. It sits, full of memories and cobwebs. It sits empty, dark, and somber.

I have not driven past it on this visit home. I haven’t driven by and seen the room off the front porch where I would sit and wait for him. The place he would often come to for me. Where I would sometimes sit alone, disappointed.

I did drive past a road I used to turn right on almost every day, literally for years. That road took me to his home and his family, of which I was made to feel a part, so many times. It took me sometimes alone, and sometimes with him. It took me.

Like he had.

Every ounce of my heart was siphoned away, every piece of my soul seemed to have been drawn out. I would say it was painless, because, after all, I wanted it that way. But it would be more truthful just to say I must have enjoyed the pain. Or at least, that I endured it because I knew the prize was worth it.

I wanted it to be.

I’m sitting out here with a chorus of crickets and other nighttime crawlies singing me the sweet song of the country on a soft, close summer night. I feel comfortable here. I can stretch out my legs and breathe in the scent of flowers growing nearby. In this moment, no one needs me. I’m at peace. Just myself, in the dark, alone. Comfortable.

Over and over again I had put all of myself into him, willing him to be more and to somehow make me whole, as such. I piled upon him expectations and needs. I was not perfect. He was not perfect. We were not perfect. We were just us and us was foolish.

He-I lost me-him and we were both abandoned by the ending we thought was in store for us. I wanted promises, he needed freedom and choices. I needed validation and hope, he demanded space and what ifs. I was incapable of giving him what he needed while still finding my own answer. I was incapable of just letting go and being me – instead I wanted to draw myself from him, control him, manipulate his choices.

If I lay my head back and stare up into the sky, I see a black canvas for miles, dotted with brilliant, shiny specks of electricity and power from so far away. They gleam and sparkle; a new one seems to pop into the tapestry after every few beats of my heart. If I just stare this way for awhile, what I think I see and know changes over and over again.

I expect it to look a certain way, but I can’t control what unfolds before me. I have ideas about what is out there in my view, but it is flowing and changing constantly, right in front of me, and there is nothing I can do about it. Some of the changes are noticeable, some are imperceptible to me. I sense that.

It would be foolish of me to try to force the stars to stand out in the sky in a specific order. They would call me mad and lock me in padded rooms.

I’ll never really know if it was right to part ways. I think of him from time to time and I wonder who he is now. Is he still that same person who was my best friend, or is the man he has become someone different entirely? I don’t regret those years, or the ones that have followed. I’m not sure if life has turned out exactly how I’d hoped it would after I kissed him that last time and he turned away. What I do hope now, however, is that he is happy. Because I love him in some way still, and that’s been true since the day I walked away. I hope he is happy with the way the sky looks when he lays his head back.

I can close my eyes and the reams of paper that the story of my life stands starkly on flow through my mind. I can slow it down and inspect this and that. I can speed it up to avoid things. I can ponder over the way the ink fell and what the story might be like if it had been different. I can even look at the pages that lie ahead, waiting for the stab of the pen, with concern. I guess I can worry about those pages. I guess I can be afraid. I could try to control the pen that wants to flow on its own with fancy strokes and flourishes.

It would be silly.

The way the stars in the sky arrange themselves in a predictable and yet uncontrollable fashion is a beautiful thing. Every night they show up just the way they are supposed to, and they don’t need me to worry about it, or wonder if they are doing it right.

They end up where their paths intend them to, and that is that.

Like a stone falling into cool, deep waters, effortlessly.

Like me.

When that moment of toddler stubborn brat behavior is AWESOME.

Definitely should have gone through his bookshelf and reclaimed this one already.

I won’t lie and say I haven’t seen it and thought about that already.  I have.  I’ve noticed it over and over again.  Why did I leave it there?  Honestly, I have no idea.  Maybe I WANTED him to ask me about it.  Maybe it’s just like the bottle of Prometrium.  Or maybe it’s simply another one of those things I haven’t had the energy for lately.  I wouldn’t doubt it – that list seems to grow exponentially.

When Braden brought this book, “I’m a Big Brother!” to me to read yesterday, it was one of those Big Sigh Moments.  What was I going to do?  It’s not like I could tell him, “Oh, no, Braden.  Mommy can’t read this to you because you AREN’T a big brother!  Mommy’s attempts at elevating you to that status were what The Internet likes to call a FAIL.  In other words, Braden, U can haz babee bruthr? #NO.”

So, I just did the Internal Tamping of Emotions and took the book, opened it, and prepared to read it to him.  With perhaps a few edits, or maybe even an entirely fake story.  “This totally looks like a baby, but it’s really a rocket ship headed for outer space!  Weee!”

He had one of those ultra I CAN DO IT MYSELF moments suddenly, however, and he snatched the book back because he had decided he didn’t want me to read it after all.  He wanted to read it to himself.  He employed toddler gibberish style reading… something along the lines of, “Sebbah litte bear and a shhh shhh bee bee alla beb and too and no no no hahahahaha, then daddee so hehe see? Hahahaha!”

Much better than anything I was going to make up.  And definitely a moment when I was so glad that he inherited my his dad’s control issues.

Another little boy I once spent a lot of time with.

My brother is one of those people you instantly like.

That’s because you didn’t have to grow up with the little brat.  He was sneaky, conniving, arrogant, and I damn near thought he was evil sometimes.

Knowing this would only make him smile.  I guarantee it to you.  This is just part of his charm.  And he’s got a lot of it. 

Some of my worst childhood memories involve my brother.  Can you imagine someone hitting you in the head with a brick and then manipulating the course of events so that you actually get punished for that?

Some of my best childhood memories also involve him, and revolve around my relationship with him.  I will never see a Fall Leaf fluttering to the ground without thinking of him and smiling.  If you have never Leaf Danced, you should try it sometime, folks. 

Overall, the good memories outweigh the bad memories.  Which is nice.

He has gone through so very much, changed  and grown so dramatically in the past 10 years.  He has always been fiercely intelligent, but now he is also becoming a responsible, successful young adult.  I’m so proud of him.

Today, he defended his Masters Thesis, and passed.  That is Big Shit, people.

And now, it’s time for him to make some very important decisions.  These are big, life changing things.  Of course, in some way, all decisions we make every day change the paths of our lives.  But he’s clearly in a situation where he has to make one of those BIG, FAT nerve-rattling, anxiety-inducing decisions that won’t just gently nudge him over a little on the road.  It’s one that could just bump his ass onto the next ferry and take him over to the other shore.  Dig?

I’d like him to know that I know he’s going to make the best decision for him.  I know that no matter what decision he’ll make, he’s going to be a success, and lead a good life.  The core of him and who he is tells me that.  There may have been times when I was afraid of which path he would choose, but not anymore.  I am not worrying about him anymore, just watching, curious, to see what kind of great things he will accomplish next.

He’s a worrier by nature, so, in case he reads this, how about leaving some encouraging words for him in comments today?  I’d really appreciate that.  I know you don’t know the specific details, but you know enough to leave some words of encouragement.

Knowing he’s at this point right now reminds me nostalgically, and somewhat painfully, of a time in my life when I had a very similar decision to make.

I wonder which direction the wind in his sail will blow?

 

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