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Valentine's Day
hello people 
this just happens to be my first post, so first - let me introduce myself: 22 years old, currently living/working in nyc in the film/commercial/music video blah blah blah industry doing whatever it is us people do... like most of you i'm sure, i live an almost extra-ordinary life...
wake-up in the morning, make coffee in my underwear, stand patiently smoking by the kitchen sink waiting to jump the gun as the pot fills past the 2 cup mark, cream and 3 spoons of sugar. my mailbox is filled with past-due notices from credit card companies, student loan lenders, and con-ed. only semi-enjoying my all too familiar starbucks breakfast blend, i check my inbox, which is empty - while the junk email box is filled to the brim with messages promising me 20$ rolex's, an ennormous penis, and horny teen sluts.
great.
cigarettes, and coffee - my greatest vice, seeing me without either is a rarity, and they constitute the greater part of my day's procrastination, during which my muses consist of how very small some of the dogs in the west village are, and how many nannies stroll children thru the meat packing district.
an odd post - yes, but without purpose, not quite... yet.
what... exactly is - valentine's day? i'm sure that its' roots lie somewhere other than its contemporary encarnation, but a holiday nonetheless, albeit one that doesn't exclude work, yes... valentine's day. take your significant other out to an extravegant dinner at a resturaunt with almost impossible to get reservations, send her a boquet of roses, chocolates, fancy mass-printed fringed-heart greeting cards filled with cliche canned anticdotes of unknown authors. like most others, a consumer-fuled holiday, "lets keep it in the black people, it's valentine's day"
and for the rest of us, either on the tales of a relationship, single for up or equal to 3 years, or absolutely clueless in regards to love and the rest of it, valentine's day serves as a mute reminder to social acceptablity and acknowledgment of the opposite sex.
i'm a proud member of group number one - nearly 3 years of... something... came to an end - quite abruptly - over christmas. thankfully, as of present, things have been hectic enough to occupy enough of my mind as to not focus on it, but valentine's day... what a bitch... (i suppose her as well...)
the things most striking now, the things that hurt to remember, are the tangibles - the things that you could see and recall without even thinking, her smile, the way she looked with her hood up in the snow, the way she wiped her nose on my gloves, how infectously sweet her kisses were...
nearly three years of believing that between me and her - things were different, that fate had lent its' grace to us, our meeting was no mistake, and this one - she was what i had been searching for, for so long...
her train was nearly 3 hours late, apparently some fuck-head decided to park on the tracks, and subsequently was struck by another train an hour ahead en-route to the same station. i was ecstatic in anticipation of finally being able to hold her again, have her there - well within the reach that had been absent for so long, hold her face in my hands... the most painful thing now, was realizing that the person i then held in my arms, and the arms i wrapped around her, were foreign beyond recognition, too far away from familar.
if it were a film, picture the editor cutting together frantic memories, juxtaposing panic with fear, all appropriatly accompanied by a mind-jarring british pop song - atleast, that's how i would cut it, if it were my film - which it is, ya... goddamnit.
knowing it was over before it ended, her trip was spent in awkward silences, and equally awkward approaches; "is there anything we should be talking about here, anything you want to say? anything - before you leave?
there really is something about central park, even in the grey of winter. on that day, standing above the bethesda fountain, holding her left hand, i noticed the absence of my ring, below us a photographer was posing a newlywed couple for pictures, the bride and groom beaming in contradiction of the emptiness i was now feeling. we continued, up the paths enshrouded in tendrily naked branches of cold and weathered trees, towards the east side of the park, where we sat - by this guy - playing an accordian, surrounded by children, running in circles around their strollers - a sight that in and itself was hard enough to bare, as we had shared this picture before - but now remained an agonizing memory...
there are so many things, in this world, to search for... so many things that complete us as people, and in moments like these, it's hard to place emphasis on finding love - and losing it - as being one of dire importance. in the end - she took more of me away than i had to begin with, and what's left behind feels vacant, those years written off to the complacency of indifference.
ironically, the hotel reservation ended one day in advance of her original trip, even before i knew she had to leave early due to an ill family member, which - i knew was bullshit, but the funny thing was it was the hotel clerk's fault that our stay was cut short. i woke at five a.m., her train left at eight, i was clinging to the hope that there was still some exchange between us that could resolve our transparent issues, and that in the three hours before she left me again, we could salvage what little love was left between us.
i still kissed her goodbye, staring eagerly afterwards as she hung her head out of view, waiting for her eyes to meet mine and in our silence say goodbye... one last time. i walked away, past the waiting area and towards the subway, turning around one last time, i looked, perhaps in hope that she'd be right behind me, waiting for me to wrap my arms around her, kiss her again, take her with me, and find renewed hope in whatever love had granted us so long ago.
she was not there, and i haven't spoken to her since. but she remains, in my dreams, always at the train station, leaving me for some unknown destination, in search of something else...
...that's my story, for valentine's day.
cheers.
Last edited by whtnoise; 02-13-2005 at 01:22 AM..
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