A Note to New Beginnings.

It is amazing how it is, very rarely, the full nights or experiences that we remember. But rather, the singular moments, the off-hand remarks, the moments of prolonged eye contact. The moments you always assume will mean nothing. Those are the moments that end up meaning everything.

I still remember, quite vividly, sitting in the living room of a friend's apartment during a New Year's Eve party. At that point in my life, I was trying to cultivate my persona as a writer. I always carried with me a standard composition notebook, as I do to this day, in an attempt to always be at the ready should some unforeseen moment worth note flutter into my life. That night, as conversation bounced off the walls around me, I sat, legs tucked under me, scribbling in one of these notebooks. In all likelihood these scribbles were merely some meaningless drivel that seemed poignant in the moment. Listening to the conversations around me, I became absorbed in the world between reality and fantasy familiar to avid people watchers.

 In attendance at this party was a young man, who later in life would prove to be one of my worst mistakes. He was charismatic and handsome and I was hopelessly enamored. As I scribbled away, he silently crouched next to the arm of my chair. Never once did he try to read what I was writing but instead he simply watched me absentmindedly scratching at the lines on the page. When I finally looked up, his eyes hung on to mine. 

"Do you know who you remind me of when you write like that?"

"Who?" I asked. 

"Me."

That simple exchange held in it the hope that would, ultimately, cause the majority of the heartbreak I felt in my early twenties. As early as later that night, he would go on to choose one of the endless parade of women, slightly more attractive than I but never as good, to warm his bed and I would go on to spend that night on the back porch; rocking myself back and forth. In a ritual I would repeat multiple times over the next few years, I fell asleep crying. 

When I think of that night, I always forget the cold night air or the happy giggles of the couplings though out the house. Instead, I remember that singular exchange. I remember the smile and the eyes that spoke to a part of me that, until that moment, had never been seen. I remember the look that never really released me. I don't choose to remember anything but that moment because, in the end, it is that moment that really meant anything. Even if that something didn't end up as I would have liked it to. It still meant something because it changed the trajectory of my life forever.