by streetlight

I was feeling not so up yesterday morning, and a tad sentimental about previous relationships.

This is not new, as I've even been labeled as living in the past or the more insulting stuck in the past which I never thought was true actually. I wonder as to what would be worse? Listening to only one decades worth of music, never experiencing the new and strange or reflecting on, possibly learning from previous experiences and seeing the connections to present relationships?

All I know is that the past is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there again.

You know I like myself better as the sentimental sap than the cold unfeeling person I let myself become. Wanting to please someone who couldn't be pleased, to be affectionate to someone who didn't like to be touched will do that to you.

Things are different now.

From a different time:

We walked up the street on an unusually warm evening as traffic speed by to the distant reaches of the city. Ahead was a strange guy who kept looking back at us or for an imagined friend to save him from his walk.

“That guy looks kind of sketchy don’t you think?”

“This area is a little sketchy.”

“No, the area isn’t bad, there are tons of people walking up to xxxxxx to eat”.

I place my arm into hers and slowed down the pace, “Why are you walking so fast?”

On the next block I slid my arm out and grabbed her hand. I knew she liked walking hand in hand, but it was something I never did anymore. I quickly thought how this little act seemed normal to me again, how the street lights gleamed off the storefront windows, taillights blurring in a long exposure replacing the non-existent starlight of this city’s night sky.

We turned down the side street where we left the car, and I wondered out loud if my car would still be there, always paranoid of being towed even at a perfectly legal space. One more little street crossed, our hands never leaving, never pulling or dragging each other back. This residential part, one block off a major street, was alive with residents walking by, kitchen lights on, with the sounds of televisions overflowing the window sills down into the street.

“Don’t be lame, its still here,” she said as we cross the strip of grass to the side of the car. I pulled her over leaning onto the passenger door and kissed her.