Diary of a Lover

To be with you was to be in love every second of the day. To be with you was to fight for myself and you also, for us. To be without you is the lonely shiver of a tumbleweed. A forgetting beat that is off sync -- my heart doesn't even seem to be my own anymore -- I have forgotten the beats of it. With you I could recognize the jumps, skips, tugs, the flow -- Everything.

--

Today wasn't half as bad as I thought it'd be. I got all of my duties done at work without any reminders -- I kept myself from daydreaming and thinking of you. Lord knows if I'd have thought about you for another day the next I wouldn't be able to see straight. To anyone reading this, this isn't about a silly, naive crush. This isn't my coming of age story or how I began to learn. No, this is the story of my first healthy love. My first everything. My first kiss, my first date, my first . . . sex.

This is how the right person and wrong timing exists. As any true love story begins I had met Agnes in the bliss of winter, it was in the sixties outside on the said day, just right for me but tearing right through Agnes' light coat. It was almost as if she couldn't tell that it was the middle of December--the season of love-- how could I not have seen it coming? I had stopped looking for love so long ago that I couldn't tell when it had began knocking at my door.

Her hair had been pinned up making the curls that she owned so profoundly bounce whenever she shivered. I wasn't "smooth" or ever trying to seem so whenever I spoke to anyone but you'd think a guy would try when the epitome of beauty was only a few feet away.

"Hey, everything alright?" I asked, after I had said it did I only realize the ignorance in my question. But the thing about ignorance is that you can always be taught.

Her teeth had chattered before she spoke and it was hard to watch her suffer like so, even if she was only the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. "Kind of," she smiled. "I'm freezing." This time she laughed. And if the day hadn't been blissful enough already the sound of her laughing had shifted it.

"I'm sorry, that was stupid of me," I more so mumbled to myself, but she just smiled at me as my eyes averted to my feet and then back to her. "I have two jackets on, I can share, if you meet me again tomorrow." At that moment it didn't even feel as if I were speaking. I had just been borderline smooth to a gem.

She giggled and I chuckled, at least we both understood that she couldn't blame me for trying, and for some reason on that gorgeous Monday, she agreed. I shared my favorite jacket with her that day. A jacket my father had given to me when I was nine -- a golden jacket with our family name printed in black letters across the back. Now it had age to it -- fourteen years to be exact. But she looked like a walking goddess in it, so warm that the next day I didn't even bother to take it back, but we had made a deal.

"I'm going to let you have my jacket but can you make me a promise?" I asked, I knew I was risking it with a promise like so but it felt good to risk something with her. Even if she'd walked away that day I still would've been satisfied. Stomach full of daisies and butterflies at the thought of her until I died.

"What's that?" She asked, answering my question with her own.

"Friendship."

"For how long?"

"However."

"So be it."

And so it was. I had successfully gotten Agnes' number that day, and her name.

"I'm Agnes, and you are?" So assertive, I thought, that's what you are. Always knowing exactly how to stir a conversation and keep me on my toes. I blushed. Yeah, my cheeks flushed a bright red from only a few words. Who was this Agnes exactly, an angel? My angel?

"I'm Julian. . . Robert, if you care about last names." I added, I was rambling. The nervousness had coursed into my veins now fully trying to flee the situation. She didn't care about last names-- at all--but she had given me hers to match. "Agnes Michael."

We shook hands when we introduced ourselves and her hand melted like glue into mine, so sweet and subtle, you had hardly remembered it was entrapping you. But on from there we met everyday at that bus stop for the next two years until I finally bought a car. By that time we were best friends not even thinking of the love we had been nurturing under our sleeves. We were just two developing adults at the time coming together and growing without even realizing it.

Agnes taught me many things in our time together, and I pray I did the same. Agnes taught me how to truly trust myself, how to know myself, how to always believe in what was happening and not what could've happened. If you can't already tell Agnes was the most wonderful first love.