Tag: love

On saving the last dance…

On saving the last dance…

by cindereulla ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

6920158-Dancing-Feet-0Sixteen years old, in the middle of my high school gym. The lights are low. A mirrored disco ball reflects the multicolored lights of a low-cost DJ. The lights caress every surface of this homecoming dance. We are the only two people on the glossy, wooden basketball court. My red, satin dress ripples around me. My tiara is pinned securely into my hair. All eyes are on us.

Nineteen and in the arms of a handsome young man with warm brown eyes and dark chestnut hair that is always perfectly messy. We circle the dance floor. I rest my head on his chest and I feel his chin settle into my hair. It is my dear friend’s wedding, but it might as well be ours. We are so in love and oblivious to anything else. His hand is on the small of my back and mine is wrapped around his neck, toying with his hair. Everything is perfect. For us, time has stopped.

Twenty-two. Our first dance as man and wife. My long white, satin gown clings to my slender frame. My veil cascades down my back and trails my movement. I gaze up at this man I plan to spend the rest of my life with and his blue eyes are locked with mine. They promise me forever.

Twenty-four. He spins me around the dusty floor of the crowded honky tonk. Indecipherable country music blares overhead and we laugh together. The tequila warms our blood and I am dizzy. This is, unknowingly, our last dance as husband and wife.

Twenty-six and I’m at my new sister-in-law’s wedding. My husband’s brown eyes light up as we dance for hours and hours. My feet are aching and my heart is longing for home, but goodness we dance well together. We anticipate each other’s every move. Spin. Turn. Dip. Turn. Spin. Over and over, one after the other. Those around us may be casting lots over how long our whirlwind marriage may last, but we do this well and everyone around us knows it.

Twenty-eight. His gorgeous green eyes gaze into mine. His broad shoulders tower over my small frame, exaggerated by the epaulettes of his pilot’s uniform. His scent is intoxicating as we slow dance together, a prelude to an adventure.

Twenty nine. He’s back in town. It’s been sometime since I saw him last. We decide to meet for a drink or two. We sit and chat, laugh. For a moment it’s almost like old times. Crazy by Patsy Cline comes on the jukebox and he holds his hand out to me. “One last dance, for old time’s sake?” I hesitate for a moment before taking his hand and allowing him to lead me to the tiny dance floor in the darkened pub. He pulls me close and it feels just like it used to. We always danced so well together. This was one of the only things that was ever easy for us. It feels so good, but as quickly as it started, the song ends. Just like us.

Each of these moments ended. In the end we all slowed down, took a final spin, and let go. I’m still saving the last dance for the one that won’t.

On one last time…

On one last time…

by cindereulla ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

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“When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we’ll see.”

This night, this last night. They both were trying their best to memorize every moment. They had had a last night before, but like most last nights, it was wasted. Like most last anything, they didn’t know just what it was, and like most lasts they let it slip through their hands. Unnoticed. Unappreciated. It was not until long after the moment had past, that either of them realized just what had gone. It was not until after that their mind’s eye had tried to reclaim it. Tonight though, the fates had been kind. The fates had decided to give them one more last and they knew it. They knew exactly what this was and they were going to treasure every moment. Tonight they would dance and love and laugh and hold and kiss with the moon as their spotlight and the summer night as their stage.

“No I won’t be afraid, no I won’t be afraid. Just as long as you stand, stand by me.”

They also knew what was to come. All of the lonely nights, all of the days not lived. All of the dreams not had, and all of the never mores and never wouldbe’s. They knew because they already had endured all the lasts and because of that there was an unspoken agreement that there was just now. No tomorrow. No what if. Just now. Because if they gave into the what if’s, the maybes this would be gone. They would be ripped from this gift.

“If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall and the mountains should crumble to the sea…”

Nothing mattered, but this. This moment. This gift. Nothing mattered but this last time they would ever feel their skin against one another’s. The world could end around them and nothing, not one thing could tear their eyes from one another’s or their hands away.

“ I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no I won’t shed a tear. Just as long as you stand, stand by me.”

On magic and love…

On magic and love…

by cindereulla ♥ 1 Comment

I remember the moment I realized that I no longer knew how to pretend. I was around six or seven, I suppose. Not quite in the double digits. Of that I am sure. My friends and I were playing Peter Pan. I was supposed to be Wendy. This was one of my very favorite games. Brave and dashing Peter. Evil, but alluring Captain Hook (yes, even then there was a certain mystique to the bad boys, but we shall discuss that later). Lost Boys who need a mother, and Wendy who is more than happy to take up the role. Peter, the boy she loves who she is doomed to never really have. In hindsight, this all set the tone for my existence (again, a discussion for another day).

Not one week earlier this game made complete sense. I loved to lose myself in this world. It was like second nature. I could step in and out of that fantasy land seamlessly. The magic was real. Tangible. It felt so very right.

This day, however, everything changed. This is the moment I began to grow up. I felt it when it happened. The same thing that made perfect sense one week ago now felt completely and utterly absurd. Embarrassing almost. I can remember that even in my child’s mind I was heartbroken over this. Even then I understood, on some level, that this was the end of an era. The last fleeting moments of pretend, of magic and I didn’t know how to undo it. To this very day, I remember exactly how it felt. Like being in a wonderful dream and being doused with a bucket of cold water. It hurt.

I have since spent an inordinate amount of time, unsuccessfully, attempting to recapture those magical moments. Trying to get back to that magical place. The place where dreams come true, there is a prince for every princess, and you could step off of a windowsill and fly simply on the power of a happy thought. Most of these attempts end in the abrupt and painful crash back to reality where people let you down, heartbreak can be crippling, and there is no White Knight.

It has been my experience that the closest anyone ever gets to reaching that place again, is when they are lucky enough to fall in love. It’s like, for that moment, the door that stands between dark, grey reality and glittering, shining magic is unlocked and stands ajar, allowing a brief glimpse into that promising place. For a moment we feel invincible, as though nothing could possibly pull you down. We feel we can once again fly on the power of this wonderfully happy thought. Anything and everything is possible, if we could just get to that door and squeeze through to the other side.

We reach for the knob. Strain.

I think a handful of us are just privileged enough to stumble forward and make it. We have all heard of those few epic loves. Perhaps it was your great-grand parents or an aunt and uncle whom you adored. They struggled and fought and made it to the door.

I think the rest of us tend to fall just short of making it there. The love fractures somehow and we trip and the door slams shut in our faces. Or perhaps it was never love to begin with, just reaching for the wrong door. It looked so very much like the one you remembered from when you were little.

Not many of us make it to the door.  After trying so hard one too many times, we grow weary of it slamming shut. The crash, as it latches, is an assault on our senses. Some of us stop trying to reach it all together. It hurts too much.

I hope someday I reach that door. I hope that I find that prince that will help me find it again and together we will both make it back to that wonderful place. It gets harder and harder to remember what it looks like though. Harder to remember the feel of the wind in my hair as I fly over the Never Land. Harder to convince myself I ever saw the door at all.

On being ambushed by grief… an open letter to someone I loved…

On being ambushed by grief… an open letter to someone I loved…

by cindereulla ♥ 2 Comments

I was completely unprepared for how very hard it hit me. I was minding my own business. Living. That’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s what I’m best at. Doing what I’m supposed to do. I sat on my bed and held your shirt. The blue and white plaid Daniel Cremieux one that you were so fond of. You would wear it untucked with the sleeves folded up. You would saunter casually with your hands in your pockets. So confident. I held it in my hands, inhaling your scent. It still smells like you. Hei by Alfred Sung and Tide. I am overwhelmed by it. I close my eyes and I can see your face, your eyes, your smile. I can feel your cheek on mine. Rough. You laugh and pull me in. My chest constricts. I feel the grief and regret smother me. It ambushes me. Caught me off guard. I was so unprepared.

I know you are on the other side of the world. Its nighttime there.  So very far away. You are not thinking of me, not grieving, not counting the lost days. Or have you found something of mine and been transported to another time? Another place? Somewhere hopeful and bright? Can you feel the sun on our bodies as we lay in the grass, our hands intertwined, my leg draped over yours? Can you see me leaning over you gazing into your perfect brown eyes and can you feel my lips press to yours promising you everything and forever with that kiss? Does it break your heart the way it does mine? Do you mourn the death of the idea of what we were supposed to be? Or, am I just a brief glimpse of scenery, a stopover on the road you’ve travelled?

It seems cruel that simply breathing in the scent trapped in the fibers of your forgotten article of clothing could do this to me still. After all these years. Your memory lives for me in this piece of fabric that once clung to your tall, slender frame. I am rendered helpless, frozen, trapped in the memory.

So, I set it down, stand up and place it on the top shelf of my closet, to be ambushed another day when I’ve forgotten I’ve put it there. I can’t quite bring myself to discard it. That makes is too real. Too final. Having it means you were real and we happened. It means for that for one brief, golden moment we were hopelessly in love and happy and hopeful. Everything changed, but for that glorious moment I was a part of love and it was wonderful.

If I was courageous, if I was brave, I would send this letter. I would tell you that the only reason I left you was I knew that you loved me too much to leave of your own accord. I would tell you that having to break your heart was one of the hardest things I had done at that point in my life. There were so many things you wanted to do, so many adventures you wanted to have, but I couldn’t leave everything and go with you. I knew you would have stayed. You said so through the tears that proved I was ripping your heart to shreds. I would tell you I hated myself in that moment. I would tell you that the idea of you staying just to be with me, and you waking up one day and looking at me with regret was more than I could withstand. I would tell you that I instantly regretted it because I knew what it meant. It meant that someday you would hate me after the hurt wore off.  I would tell you that I loved you too much to keep you like a caged bird. It was the only way I knew you would leave. It was the only way I knew how to make you live the life you dreamed of. I would tell you how sorry I am. I loved you so much. I would tell you that.

If I were courageous I would also tell you how happy I am that you are happy. I would tell you that when I see your posted pictures of you in exotic places, after the heartache wears off, I am happy to see you smiling. I would tell you to have an adventure for me.

But I am not courageous and I will never send this letter. I will never tell you any of this. You will never know how you touched my life and my heart. You will never know there is a girl on the other side of the world who misses you terribly and would love nothing more than to turn the corner at a book shop and see you there with your hands in your pockets and your wild hair hanging in your eyes. To have you turn to me, take a minute for recognition to set in and then smile and hug me. For you to look at me with a smile.

This won’t happen. Maybe someday I will be able to get rid of that stupid button up shirt and not think of what we had or what was yet to be. Maybe someday I will not be ambushed by grief when I see it. Until that day it will stay on that shelf, a souvenir of one of the happiest times in my life. One of the last times I remember being truly happy.