seeing you again

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you told me once that you're not very good at keeping touch with people.

we were sitting in front of the fireplace, close enough to each other to be in earshot, but far enough that it made sense to stare into the fire instead of making eye contact. which was good for me, because i don't really like eye contact. anyway, you were telling me that you didn't know what to say to people you knew that you weren't going to see again for a while, maybe ever, because they're cool but not life-changing.

i thought about telling you not to borrow grief from the future, but i had learned that phrase from a dumb tumblr post and besides, i don't think what you were saying was really about grief. it was more about the awkwardness, the inconsistency of saying something that isn't quite true when you tell them that of course you'd want to grab coffee the next time you're in town.

here i have an admission to make: i could have and should have been paying more attention, but i was just thinking about how i hadn't seen you in a while, and how painfully glorious it was to see you again. when we stopped talking for the night, i was the one that was grieving.

but i should have listened to that tumblr post, because it turns out that i was borrowing grief from the future when i didn't need to. i saw you again the next night, the night when i climbed the fire escape ladder with you, despite being scared out of my mind. i wondered whether you noticed or not — it's kind of embarrassing for someone whose premier hobby is rock climbing — but also the fire escape was my idea, so hopefully that covered for it. i always want you to think that i'm brave and strong, even though the fact that you can see otherwise is what makes you you.

i wish i could ask you whether you remember that night. i mean, obviously the version of you that was there remembers, but it would be a nonsensical question to ask all the others. you are but a pareidolic face woven out of red strings of fate, what memory do you have?

but i can't help it, the wishing. so i try to remember for you, collecting fragments from every time i see you. fireplace conversations and fire escape ladders, yes, but also incomprehensible whiteboard scribbles in a college dorm room. seaside donuts, an impromptu piggyback ride, and a 2am conversation on the pier. sitting next to each other in our assigned numbers in p.e. class. collecting roly-polies from the kindergarten planters.

i know that the next time i see you, you'll have a different form, a different set of memories. we'll be meeting for the first time, in a sense, because this version of you won't remember me. but i'll know it's you.

and maybe that is enough.