When you think Tim McGraw....

I joined in on a prayer group today; an opportunity for seniors to reflect prayerfully on the past four years. We were asked to create a time-line of our years at college. And then we put tissue paper over those time-lines, and wrote in between the dates how God was or wasn't present at that point in our lives. Where was He? What did He do? What did He not do?

I realized, after I did that exercise, that God was most present in my life in the years when I didn't think He existed. I look back now and I see those years as a series of gifts, blessings....God was present in the people that I was blessed to meet and fall in LOVE with. At the time I was living it, God was absent. I was a devout Athiest. Now, I have no idea how I could ever have overlooked all that I was given. How could I have ignored the blatant displays of unconditional love from God, ever-present in the people that He surrounded me with?

And I put my love story on the time-line too. I have a love story. I always kept it a secret. From everyone. Nobody would really understand.

You see movies, and you imagine that floating feeling that you would have if that were you. I had that. You see lovers sipping wine on the hood of a car in a field at night and think that doesn't really happen. It happened to me. You watch two people intertwine to the point of being inseperable in the span of weeks and think that's unrealistic. That was my reality.

But until today I discounted it as a dream, a teenager's longing, hormones, whatever. I thought about him tonight, and I pray that when he hears a Tim McGraw song, he gets the same goosebumps that I do. I pray that driving by a pasture of horses in Texas reminds him of the nights we spent trying to feed the horses in Arlington. I pray that when he eats peaches, he remembers how I wanted to move away to Kansas, no forwarding address. I hope that he gets the knot in his stomach when he rives by my house, that I get when I drive by his.

No, I'm not in live with him. I probably never was. Brent is a gift straight from God himself. But my love story was a lesson from God, a painful reminder of the fleeting nature of passion and lust. And he was an example of how God is present in things that are painful, unpretty, hurtful, and sometimes even vile. I was probably never in love with him. But I LOVED him. The idea of him. The enigma. And now I'm rambling. But honestly, have you ever ridden in a convertible from MA to Canada, and turned around to go home after you saw the border? On a whim? Have you ever honestly, truthfully, danced in the rain? Been picked up and spun around while kissing, dancing in puddles? No, that was not love. That was not being in love. That was being in fantasy. But I loved him. I think I still love him. Somewhere in me. When I hear Tim McGraw songs and long for the man who really feels what those lyrics say. When I sit on my balcony at 5 am with my coffee and wonder who else appreciates the beauty of feeling the dew evaporate. When I drive back home, top down, rims spinning, thinking how amazing it is just to be here, right here in this moment.

Now I know I'm rambling. But I can't get him out of my head right now. I need to know that he's okay, that his life has turned out the way he wanted it to when he signed those dotted lines. My dad has spoken to him since he left, but I haven't. I can't. I can't ever talk to him without going back to Dudley road, learning how to drive at night. Or to the Hess, counting pennies for gas to get us to a friend's house, who would lend us money for more gas. Or to the Hajjar parking lot, debating the fate of the apocalyptic battle between Batman and Superman. While skunks take refuge under the Cougar and I cry because I don't want to smell.

I can never speak to him again without wondering what goes on in his heart when he hears Tim McGraw. Does he remember teaching me how to climb trees? Does he think about that time when we spied on the new development, dreaming about the day when one of us would own one of those fancy houses? Does he remember that he gave me his class ring? With his initials....PMM? Does he ever think about that time he yelled at me for chewing my sleeves? I'll never forget that, and I'll never chew my sleeves again. Does he remember the notebook we passed to each other in the hallway, so nobody would know? How many times has he relived that time in the grocery store parking lot, where we sped away, rubber burning, so nobody would see us together? We were the perfect mismatched pair. The disaster waiting to happen.

I thank God every day that he left the way he did. I thank God that my teen-aged self could let him go, and know where to go when he was gone. But I wonder every night where he is, what he's doing. And if I'm on his mind the way he's on mine.

If people knew how love stories really ended, I don't think they'd sell as well. I hope he thinks of me.