Tuesday, April 26, 2005

The Sun Also Rises: I'm Living Proof

As my other half and I conspired and planned our next venture, measuring location, schedule and duration and the ancillary details (when her parents will be around, away and/or otherwise indisposed) we were poring over possible dates, weekends, work schedules and planned appointments with real estate brokers so she could take a peek at some apartments around the City.

While that was a-happnin', her dad sent me an e-mail as a thank-you for a DVD I'd gotten for he and his wife, a DVD she said they would love. So as we were going back and forth talking Yankees baseball (oy), Christopher Walken, Broadway and the state of the City, I am almost giddy looking forward to meeting her parents. Not sure if it will be mid-May, the end of May (Memorial Day) or sometime over the summer, but it's coming up on the horizon. Adding to that, my other half called me early this AM because she was having trouble sleeping. Hearing my cell phone blaring away in the distance -- "What I Like About You" being the ringtone indicating she was calling me from home -- I grabbed the cell, surprised, excited and a little worried. Everything was fine, she said; she just couldn't sleep and wanted to hear my voice. Figuring I was asleep (it was a little before 6AM here), she was as surprised as I when I picked up.

She called the cell, she explained, because my home line was busy. Apparently I forgot to hang up the phone when I dozed off whilst on the phone with her last night, so I called her back from my home phone and we talked for a half hour or so until we both got sleepy and we said our goodnights again.

As forced and unfair and detached it sometimes feels, spending so much time with someone so far away, it was nice; it felt like we were whispering under the same covers, in the same dark room, sharing warmth and her perfume still lingering on my sheets. So I kept my eyes closed and it felt almost like she was there with me; I knew, rationally, that she wasn't right next to me in bed, but having the memory of her being her so fresh in my mind and my heart helped quiet my mind telling me she was at the other end of 3,000 miles of fiber-optic cable.

If there ever is a nice way to start your day by waking up alone, especially when you're in love, it's being woken by the voice of someone you can't live without. On top of that, a friend who'd gone through some very difficult times of his own, very similar to those I personally endured this past year, got some very good news, and it reminded me that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

In contrast, I remembered I had wanted to call a friend of mine who'd gotten some bad news from a doctor last week, and I felt badly because I fell asleep before I had a chance to place the call last night. But as I explained to said friend yesterday when we were first discussing the situation, everything does work out for the best, even when the news seems as dark and awful as it can get. It's sometimes hard to put things in proper perspective and see the big picture, especially when the details are far from positive and optimistic and when one is in the moment, but sometimes seeing the big picture and knowing the sun also rises not only helps one face the dark days, but enables us to live through the experience(s) and come out better, stronger and wiser. And any time anyone relates bad news, the one thing that comforts me -- and should comfort anyone reading this -- is that things do have a way of working out much better than one could ever have imagined while enduring the darkness.

Like the t-shirt says: I'm living proof.

2 comments:

Kaia said...

Hey darling man - quick 'comment' to let you know i love you and miss you. Very much. Madly - Kaia

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your wonderful words. It helps so much to know someone else has been through rough times and has come out at the other end of the nightmare better than ever. Thanks my friend :-)