All The Small Things

July 27th, 2006

“hey .. can you do me a favour?” i asked softly. “can you turn in left over here? just for a few minutes.”

“okay,” he complies as he turns the car into the quiet street. “what’s here?”

i dont answer for a while. all i do is press my face and hands to the car window and look out.

i’m looking at a house. it’s not the prettiest of houses, and not the most comforting either .. i knew it too short a time to really connect to it like i have come to do with most places. and the more i look at this house and take it in, the more i feel very forlorn. just like how i used to whenever i was in it. forlorn and lost and sincerely confused. this feeling is so painfully familiar.

despite all those sad emotions i feel when i’m in this house, and despite not having known it for very long, despite its imperfections … i love it. very much. because of what it inherently is - a house, belonging to someone very special. and so i wonder, as i stare at it, is this how true love feels like? to see something imperfect as perfect, even though you acknowledge all its flaws, even though you arent necessarily happy? loving something so blindly. is this what true love is?

he sits next to me quietly as the car idles in front of the sleeping house.

“someone i used to know lives here. or used to live here. i’m not really sure anymore,” i finally answer.

“were you close to him?”

“her.. it’s a her. and yeah i was very close to her. very, very close actually..”

“what happened?”

“i dont know. to be truthful i dont know if we were even really close at all.”

it’s hard to say how i felt around her. i’d like to say instantly that we were always so comfortable with each other, but i cant deny that somewhere in between the fringes of this comfort, there exists the grotesque feeling of putting on fronts. it’s like the aftertaste of telling a really big lie, and it exists on both our parts. hers is the mask of a person who can relate, mine is one of someone who is blissfully ignorant. our alteregos go well together. but it’s tough to discern if our real selves would have been best friends - i dont think we ever really showed that side of ourselves to each other.

“you wanna know something cute.. i used to sleep so well on the couch in her living room,” i muse out loud. “i always felt so safe. not cos of the house itself, but cos i knew it was her house that i was falling asleep in.”

he doesnt answer me, but pulls me close and holds me as i continue staring at this house. this house of john grisham novels, american idol, aglio olio pasta and speeches recorded on video camera. tension rests lightly above the roof of the house, but there is warmth and the protection of an umbrella in its driveway.

before i know it i am crying. hot splashes of tears that have been waiting many years for this one day. a day of recognition, realization, and regret. “dont cry,” he says. but how can i not? she meant so much to me, and now we cant go back to what it all used to be. we were just so scared of each other, scared to intrude and so fearful that the other person just isnt going to be welcoming.. and now time has facilitated all that was meant to happen.

i refresh her blog over and over again, desperate to learn something new about her. desperate for an update that i’ll never hear in person. desperate to feel the closeness. any closeness. i dont even ask for the closeness of sharing ipod earphones or the closeness of studying add math together … i just want something small and simple to remind me of how everything used to be.

it is just very painful. this knowledge. knowing that friendships die along with chart-topping hits in the year 2000. blink182 doesnt even exist anymore.

Entry Filed under: Musings

Viewing 28 Comments