What is a 'Good Idea' Anyway?

I don’t know if it is a good idea or not… but I am open to it. I am tired of carrying around all this grief.

Well… That makes me happy. I don’t know if it is a good idea either. But I’d like to try and see you off with a bit of grace.

What do you want to do?

Suppose I owe you a trip to Brooklyn. I’ll take the train in after work next Friday. Meet by the Barclays?

Works for me. See you then.

What is a 'good' idea anyways?

'Good.' Talk about an empty word. Completely devoid of any innate meaning. But what else is new. The plans were set. I was on the 4:14 train into Atlantic Terminal with only an hour of waiting, shaking, and sipping she would be in front of me again. Like all the times before. Minus the years between seeing one another.

Circumstances and poor judgement ripped us apart. With an assist from yours truly.

But none of that mattered anymore. All the day dreams… telling her I was sorry and sweeping her off her feet—to blowing off the rendezvous entirely, agonizing through hours of strategizing… what I’d say, what I’d do… wondering how would all feel—the playbook went out the window.

It was me, a sea of strangers spilling out of the terminal exit, and time—waiting. Waiting for her, for that moment. My breath got short. More so than expected. There was a gentle ache in the back of my throat.

From behind a small pair of cheap sunglasses I watched it all unfold. A large man with a hat popped out. A crew of pigeons waddled across. The artsy woman in an old school Nets jersey. A few kids carrying skateboards, laughing. And then her. Wavy hair, tan skin. No worse for the wear. Not on the outside.

I shut my eyes and tried to settle but it was no bother. Breathing sped up, eyes welled up, and it hit me. She was there. Walking towards me—for the first time in two fucking years.

Painfully corny to say, but the moments get stacked together. They pressed into me, memories flashed like a strobe light. So much love, so much pain, so, so many mistakes. My body pulsed.

She was 50 yards away. Standing alone I waited and watched. Frozen. Unwilling to take a step towards her, like always. There was less and less time between each breath. I felt weary. My chest rose and fell. Up and down. Up and down.

30 yards out. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. The pigeons still waddled, but the large man in the hat was nowhere to be found.

At 10 yards out the levee broke. Tears streamed down. The sunglasses friends loved to compare to the set Morpheus wore in The Matrix fogged up. By a stroke of luck the skater kids were gone. Those bastards would’ve taken my lunch money. A miserable sight.

Still walking towards me, she shook into support mode and asked why I looked so sad. I had no words for her. No explanation. It wasn’t even sadness, really. It was an emotional clusterfuck.

There was no “good” reason to be in the pavilion outside The Barclays Center. But I needed it—and I hoped that it would do well by her. She was all set to head off to France the following week. Pursuing a Masters in International Communications. Then, she would be completely out of reach. Which was okay, but the thought of the gap widening another year or two struck me funny. What if we never made amends? What if that last tear-soaked, hungover phone call was to be our forever? Funny is the wrong word. That haunted me.

And thus, it was all a bit overwhelming.

After some time, I found my composure. We walked down the street, through a little park and found Brooklyn Forest Brewery. There was a gorgeous painting hung by the entrance. Two children, a boy and a girl, sitting beneath a pear tree for a picnic. A passive stream running in the background. Tranquility.

The waiter sat us down and put two cold beers in front of us. We spoke. Then two pickle-back shots and two more beers. Finally, we told each other we needed to. The pit in my stomach shook. Truthfully, I owed her a lifetime of apologies. They spilled out. One after another after another.

“Louis…?” She asked me. “Why did you want to see me? Was this all just for closure? Like what you did with Sarah? And Liz?”

“Heather. No. And before I get ahead of myself, I didn’t come to sweep you off your feet… But I didn’t come to say goodbye either. Simply put: I hate how we left things. I was too naïve to do right by you in one way or another… You asked why I wanted to see you? To tell you I’m so, so sorry for how I treated you—and weirdly more importantly—to wish you luck. To tell you I am happy for you. And to make sure that you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I love you… That I always want the best for you… The timing was fucked up. I am flawed.”

She looked at me. I looked at her. Her hand was trembling.

“Well, Lou. Now you get what you came here for.”

“How so?”

“I’m stuck under your finger again.”

“That’s not what I came here for.”

“Keep telling yourself that, baby.”

I took a hefty swig of my beer, while my pathetic, overwhelming ego beat its little chest.

“I have to keep telling myself that, baby.”