There are as many ways to love someone as there are ways to say goodbye.

I remember you in the rain-soaked restaurant after a long drive to the coast, candlelight, and wine-drenched warmth.  And I remember the phone conversation where I said I couldn't do it any longer and the consciousness of the havoc I wrought.

And you in the dark with the taste of freshly gained independence in my mouth.  The illicit nature of being there with you, your hair running through my hands, the discovery of losing myself in the night hours.  And the slow, painful tearing apart that went on for months and months and months before I saw the writing on the wall.

And raucous, uncontrollable laughter in the most extreme travels of my life.  You my light, my companion of humor in what would otherwise have been extraordinarily terrifying moments.  Then the alcohol and the other women and the most painful goodbye on those long country roads.

I knew each of you so intimately.  You were as inextricable from my being in that given time and place as my own hands, my own heart. And yet we trudged ceaselessly toward our own version of goodbye. But at our peak, we were really something, weren't we?  Something to behold.  People would probably use the phrase "young love."  But that's a stupid saying, meaningless.

Slow, meandering moments in the dark. Long, tortuous lapses of time between each caress.  Nervous anticipation. One touch. In solidarity so painful.  In combination ecstasy.

Ecstasy.  A word reserved for you and I.  And you and I.  And also (probably) you and I.  In that particular time

The worst entrapment must necessarily be self inflicted.  Employment.  Marriage.  Children.  We do it all the time.  Decisions which are expected become the means through which we're prevented from self actualization.  Prevented from happiness through concern for others.  Which sounds entirely selfish and insane.  Truly.  And yet, I believe one can be married and one can have children and one can have a career.  But it should be done, most certainly, on one's own terms and without compromise.

Which is easier said than done.

Nearly impossible, by my calculations.

I still see you in my dreams. Us. Always we are there and we are laughing like we used to.  Endlessly. Raucously.  Like we always did.  We were so impractical, you and I.  And yet, I can't help wishing you were here now.  Because when you were with me nothing was serious and no problem was so great we couldn't chase it with laughter.  And in the dark of the evening, in your arms, everything else faded. 

But we were so god damn impractical, you and I.  

You drank too much and slept with too many.  I too intolerant of even one mistake.

It's never in my conscious moments that we're together again, but always in my dreams.  Because even though I wouldn't want you now--I'll be clear, I would never want you again--I miss so, so desperately the wild, red-tinted edges the world took on when I was with you.  Every touch, every joke, every fleeting moment when your eyes met mine was more exhilarating than every moment since.

And isn't our insanity absolutely transparent?  Isn't this madness I am preaching?  I willingly left, plodding so quickly forward some of what we were is gray and blurry in my mind.  I went on and forgot and grew up.  But the heart does not so quickly forget.  It relives you and I so often.  I cannot escape you nor doubt I truly will.  I will replay us--God that we had never ended--until the end of my days.

Tortured by the impracticality of us.  And yet, ceaselessly basking in the pleasure of having lived even a solitary second by your side.  Thank god for those precious, fleeting moments.