You come rolling in on the very first taste of Fall, you know those early September days, when you can feel the first nip of cold on your heels. You wouldn’t know that though, because the first sign of winter for you is rain. It’s been a long coma and an instantaneous blink these past twenty years. Despite the hundreds of thousands of seconds that have been between those sun-kissed and love drenched years that belonged to you and I, your ghost still haunts me, said best by Kenny from Daphne…. These Ghosts, My Hopes, The Sea (Daphne Loves Derby) Sometimes you visit me in the space in-between, making speechless appearances in my dream. It’s like I can feel your distance or nearness depending on how you present yourself to me. Sometimes, you are distant, sitting silently in my dream like a static TV without volume—a beloved Charlie Chaplin in technicolor. Twenty years couldn’t break whatever this imaginary travesty was. Soul ties are real, they say. Maybe I never broke ours. I used to plant tears with glasses of Merlot and long walks down all of Punk Goes Acoustic, Yellowcard and Daphne. Buckets lined up only to be washed down the basin after the rain passed. Years continued to go by, loves coming and going but in all the days my heart has ever beated I have never loved another sweeter. Maybe you get your one chance at a great love. Maybe I was right when I uttered the words that one day so many days long ago 😱 I realized I’ve placed our love, our moment in time, our small, unacknowledged history in a dresser drawer. I’ve compartmentalized you because I couldn’t hold on and move on. I couldn’t celebrate you because I had to let you go, because I couldn’t be okay without cutting myself apart from you. Scissors scissing, cut– cut- cut— And all these years, i’m still healing. I’ve put you where you belong, in my past, in a place that can never be real again. Permanent things have happened. Life has absolutely happened. In moments like this, life feels like a movie. It’s surreal, and the years don’t seem real. They look like previews to movies no longer in theaters. The beautiful thing about memories, like the ones that you gave me, are they are forever. They are like a perfect, cozy sweater, coming apart at the seams—you know, the kind you can’t throw away so you keep them in your drawer. The one you ever-so-often pull out to wear like the perfect fall day, like a kiss from the sun, like a measuring stick for what you want, for what’s best. So even though you come see me on nights that I need to cry so I watch the Notebook, and remember that you were once my one and only Noah Calhoun, or if you are just thinking about me in my dream, that I’ve never loved anybody like I have loved you, since. You are the golden standard and I will know when I see it, because at one point you were that for me and it was so clear and so peaceful and for whatever reason, for all of that and this, I am thankful for the experience.

And if this finds its way to you know I am well. I am better than I have ever been. I am more in love with Jesus, I am exactly where I need to be and I know that you are too.

And to those of you who know what I’m talking about, those bucket of tear-catching moments, it’s okay to have them. Because if you never loved or lost or had your heartbroken or skinned your knee you wouldn’t be human. And that’s a beautiful thing to be.