Here's looking at you kid...

I never knew how much I could miss the way he looked at me.

I sat in a Denny’s late last night, talking with a perfect stranger and allowed myself for the first time in a long time to feel sad. Sadness is a sickness I once frequently succumbed to. There were times I felt that it was inescapable and that no amount of effort could make me feel better, it was one of those time things, in which I would just have to wait it out. I’ve learned this not to be true. As it were, happiness is not some destination or won at the hand of fortunate circumstances, rather it is the ability to find joy in whatever you have at the moment… which is a lot of hard work I’ve realized. It takes tremendous amounts of will power to reshape destructive thoughts into positives ones.

Last night however, I was sad. Not even the kind stranger and all his profound wisdom on life and the experience of it all could help pull my thoughts away from that moment. A single moment that tore through months and months of hard work, will power, and mind over matter.

“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world…” he walked into mine. I smiled a genuine smile, I was glad to see him, it really had been so long, but I don’t think I could have ever readied myself for him to look at me the way he did. What once were loving blue eyes now wore a dark color of disdain. He even looked away feigning he hadn’t noticed me or recognized me. I should have let him be, that alone should have been enough for me to know that something was wrong, but it all had happened so fast, my mind had little time to make sense of it as it happened. I beckoned him to walk the few steps closer and say hi. Begrudgingly he sauntered over. That warm smile and big hug he would greet everyone with, me especially, was now a thing of the past. He offered me a hand shake. Still oblivious, I pulled him in for a hug… so cold and unwanted was this hug. Before I knew it he had scurried off to some dark corner, his friends lingering behind stared at me, dumbfounded as though they have no recollection of who I was… and that was that.

I don’t think I will ever forget the way he used to look at me… so much love behind his eyes and that half smile. Sipping on my water the stranger asked me, “why would you always go back to him?” I thought for a moment, because there were times that it didn’t make sense even to me why I kept going back. It didn’t even make sense to me why he kept taking me back. I’d never really been in one of those off-again on-again relationships until I met him. Why did I keep going back… then I felt my eyes burning. Two o’clock in the morning at a Denny’s in the middle of no where and I’m about to cry at my answer to his question.

“why would you always go back to him?”

“… because of the way he loved me and the way that I loved him.”

Love isn’t enough. Those sappy romance movies would have me believe that love can conquer anything, reality has taught me otherwise. Sometimes people really are just too different to ever be happy with one another regardless of how much they love one another….

I sat there and could not help but let my memories float back to the times when in the middle of a fight he would look at me, trying so very hard to be angry at me…. then he would smile that smile… and I would smile… and suddenly it was as though we both realized how much we loved one another and whatever the fight was about was insignificant.

The cold stare and so resentful was his hug, I knew in that moment that the love was all gone and in its place was a bitterness, a hatred even… that’s okay, it’s the natural order of things I suppose. I wish it were easier to forget the way he used to look at me, then perhaps I wouldn’t feel such mourning over the loss of it. I just know that I will always have love for him and if ever we should cross paths again I will greet him with a smile, no matter how much his eyes wear that shade of hatred … someday I hope he smiles back.