A Perfect, Happy Day

Today I woke up, feeling refreshed after over nine hours of sleep. Sleep does the body good...

This afternoon I started watching Deep Impact, At the end of the movie, one of the central characters was speaking to her father, from whom she had been estranged, on the beaches on the Outer Banks. He had visited her in Washington and showed her pictures of a day that they and her mother had shared at their house, and she said she didn't remember it, because she was angry and hurt by the things he had done. Now, as they were preparing to die, she had come there to tell him she did remember it, and that it had been a perfect, happy day. And she ended it by saying, "I've missed you since then."

It made me think of a summer day, in August, sitting on the front porch, you smoking a cigarette and reading a book, me playing on the computer and watching you -- watching you more than anything else. Tunes were playing on the porch speakers -- probably the Dixie Chicks.

I acted more distracted than I was, and it was warm but not miserably hot. A Saturday early afternoon, and nothing else in the world was going on. You caught my eye more than once, and I was gifted a smile in return. Finally you put out your smoke, looked up at me and asked if I wanted to come inside for a few minutes. Playfully, I asked for what. You just stared back at me, with a knowing look, and got up from the little couch and took my hand and we walked inside.

It was a perfect, happy day -- and my actions, my fears, my stupidity and lack of trust caused me to change soon thereafter. It was a perfect, happy day -- and you probably missed me after that. My guilt over everything before then, my inability to give you my all drove you mad with distrust, and my life crashed around me from lies, from irresponsibility, and from ever letting go of that perfect, happy day.

I know that what I want is how I felt that day to return. I still believe it can -- despite all the hurt, the anger and the fear of doing so.