There, right there, I feel you. Somewhere just before my eyes first open and that first movement of the day, there you are. Whispering things in my ear, taunting me with your absence, let knowing me I am alive in the absolute presence of you. Like a drowning man I breathe, and like a man who has broken through the surface I bask in the simplicity of the air that sustains me. It’s the smallest things that matter when you’ve faced the enormity of life’s end.
So rare are the moments of pure clarity in this man’s life that those short gasps of clean air become all that is. To know an angel’s touch, to hear her song being sung high upon a mountain trail, becomes a great gift. To feel the truth course through your Soul is to live without remorse, and without need save her kiss. To know the simple life is to watch everything crumble into dust but know you have it all when her lips touch yours. A man of awareness knows this love, a man of experience never takes it for granted.
It took me so long to find myself and my purpose, to put the lessons of a wonderful life into play. Once like a ship without a compass, I had wandered aimlessly from storm to storm. Nothing can prepare you for the viciousness of near-disaster save the experience of that near-disaster, but in the end you either choose to stand or fade into the ether like some salty statue of Gomorrah. I choose to stand, hearing your voice through the brutal winds, knowing that no matter how strong those winds might be, they were no match for a man in love with living.
Despite it all, I am here on the verge of something wonderful. A compass discovered in the ashes has provided a new direction. Mast unfurled, anchors finally lifted, the seas call out to me in love’s sweet siren song. I hear her, beckoning me out of port without effort, my heart pushing me onward to outward toward a horizon where, I am sure, she is waiting. There are no stars marking that course. She is the star, and I am but this gravity’s humble servant.
Like all truth, she knows. Though the fog of fear may sometimes lay close to the water’s edge, the course is set and the promise of adventure assured. She has been waiting for her entire life for the kiss I’ve been waiting to give her. Nothing, not storms, not waves, not beasts of the sea, will stop our lips from meeting. On that glorious day we will find that line the separates the past from the future, and we will live in it.
Thus begins the Story of Us which did, of course, begin before the “us” ever was. Our story begins without a kiss but ends with one that never stops. Our story begins without a warm embrace but ends with one eternal. Our story begins before our sun cracked the night’s tight grip, but ended with a day renewed and hearts forever bound. After all, the best part of falling to your knees is discovering what awaits you when you pick yourself back up. What I found was her, which meant the fall was something wonderful itself.