On The Upswing (for now)

About 36 hours ago, I was somewhere low; not dark, not bleak, not hopeless, but somewhere not quite where I wanted to be. I was getting ready to watch Kaia take a random taxi to JFK and back to California.

Tonight, about six hours ago, we were talking on the phone and she let slip that she changed her flight from tomorrow to Thursday. She -- intentionally or otherwise -- did so in such a way that the surprise came at me more like a sunrise than a postcard photo. Once I realized she wasn't kidding, that she was, in fact, staying a couple more days, I was elated moreso than I have been than since I first saw her on the 29th.

I don't know how I kept my smile to myself, but as I made my way back to my office with this newly-discovered information, I realized that I've never felt this way about anyone. There's never been anyone in my life whose mere presence lights me up and relieves me, comforts me or makes me happier than does hers. Even now as she's gone off to sleep and I'm wrapping up a few odds and ends on the PC, just the two of us being together puts me at ease in a way few others things or people can.

That's not to say that it's all good -- I'm still dreading watching her taxi pull away, and the accompanying empty, sad walk of less than a dozen steps back to my apartment, feeling like I've just watched my last sunset or smiled for the very last time. There have been times -- and people -- whose departure after a stay has left me nothing short of elated -- but hers universally leave me emotionally empty as I watch her taxi disappear into the horizon. And as hard as it is watching her leave, or for me to leave San Fran, it's a good hurt: knowing how intense and how genuine -- and mutual -- our feelings are is an indescribable, scary feeling. Knowing you're so connected with someone else on this earth, and knowing that connect is at once both precarious and stronger than steel is really something. Having her in my life is not something I take for granted, certainly: it's just that treating her like a princess isn't something I have to think about but that just comes naturally, like breathing or blinking.

The other day, I was running around downtown -- work errands and assignments -- when my iPod randomly kicked up "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues" by Elton John. I've always liked his stuff, but it never really captured my soul as did early Zeppelin or some late-model AC/DC (with Bon Scott, natch). But that day, as I contemplated another of her ill-timed returns to the West Coast, I absorbed the lyrics to the aforementioned Elton John song and they haven't left me yet.

Time on my hands
Could be time spent with you
Laughing like children
Living like lovers
Rolling like thunder under the covers
And I guess that's why
They call it the blues.

I'm sure there's someone out there who would castigate me for using song lyrics in a blog; but I doubt there's ever been any song more perfect in describing my feelings -- watching her leave, knowing there's no better place for her than here with me in New York -- and it confirms that, even though I should be happy I've found someone so perfect for me, there's a legitimate and proper sadness knowing that, at least for the time being, it's temporary.

And the one thing that always seems to pull me out of it faster than anything else is the knowledge that one day, that temporary tag will disappear into the horizon instead of her taxi.