The car search began and ended this afternoon. After putting in a description of what we wanted: A Honda Civic, 2001-current, black, blue or silver, four doors, we waited a few days and received a response. It was Shoreline Mist, a grayish color-silver with a hint of something else. The something else was gold in early afternoon, blue as the snow feel, and steel as I pulled up and parked out front tonight. 2006. 33,000 miles. One owner. From Pueblo. It is beautiful. Once the snow has stopped, I’ll post pictures of the interior and the exterior in better light. It runs beautifully. Acceleration is not a problem at all. Tight turning radius. Love. Lots of it.

Grandma Mary and Aunt Sally arrived to witness the show, seeing it, they expressed their approval. Sitting in the car on the way to AAA, Mom gave me a talk. She warned me that we may want to walk away, and not to let our emotions get the better of us. As we accelerated onto the highway, I believe that all thoughts of walking away left her mind. She agreed.

I, of course, have fallen in love.

The first two days after he left were the worst I’ve experienced thus far. I realized how alone I really am in Denver. I have work and school to keep me busy, but nights are long and weekends stretch out forever.
I bought plane tickets that week, not knowing that the stress of what we were facing was about to tear us apart. As usual, he came to the rescue.
I’m settling in. Things are different.
Dairy Queen cut my hours because I am unwilling to work in Highland’s Ranch. I’m in the market for a second job, one that will look better on a resume and will possibly give me a new direction. I want to keep the one I have now, and supplement my income.
I’m going to see him in a week. Friday morning, I’ll be back on Monday morning. I am counting the days. I can’t wait. I’m flying out early, I’ll get coffee in downtown Portland and wait for him to get done with classes and then take the bus down from campus.

The room is crowded, filled with students too young to know their baggy pants and greasy hair won’t make them cool forever. They file in, walk up to the desk where a thin woman sits and complain about the wait time. Then they sit down. The young men wear baggy hooded sweatshirts and sit with hats cocked off the sides of their heads. The girls carefully applied thick makeup this morning rimming their dim eyes in dark lines and pulling on tight pants to impress their male counterparts.
The clock on the wall keeps track of the slow passage of time. Some of them shift in their seats, uncomfortable, clearly nervous, desperate to hide it so no one will notice. A thirty-something man sits with them, a student, returning back to school to get a degree.
A shrill voice complains to the two exhuasted looking students manning the desk. The thin woman has a pretty face, but is dressed in clothes very unbecoming. She struts around with a stack of papers in her hand, not realizing that she herself is just like the girls whose chairs line the wall. She flips her hair with her hand and smiles, trying to be authoritative while the kids’ eyes glaze over.
Registration problems are the reasons these people crowd into the room that is seldom used otherwise. They whine and mope, complaining amongst themselves, finding solidarity in the anxious crowd.
Then a name is called. Attention is riveted toward the desk. They are no longer a group of misplaced youths.
They are hopeful; their eyes betray that much.

He left today, another traveller arriving at a destination. We cried in the airport, as usual, and when I got home, I realized I was alone for the first time in a month. Not alone as in having an hour or two to myself, but alone as in no one around. Katie is back in Ft. Collins. I don’t know what to do with myself.
I only scheduled nine credit hours. There wasn’t much available, and nothing much I wanted to take.
It’s strange to know we won’t be getting tea anytime soon or that I won’t see his headlights pulling into my driveway. It hurts, actually.

Inside this cold strange sanctuary I am comfortable.
I haven’t stopped to breathe, yet, and I’m sure that once I do, I’ll find myself in a position to be productive.

Here I am, home, breathing easy.
Mountains surround me, catch my attention as we drive.
Danny picked me up; as usual, it involved a little bit of running, a big smile and an even bigger hug.
Heat. No cold like Chicago here.
Morning bright and blue, no gray.
Days stretch on forever, time slipping away.
Ah, I start work tomorrow.
No bueno.
I don’t own any more Dairy Queen clothes.
Danny’s mom likes me.
I love their yellow lab Emma.
Katie and I got into our own set of mischief last night. It was nice, to be back doing the things we’ve always done.
Stella’s tea.

There they were, sitting at the bottom of a box left over from freshman year: The stamps.

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” – Sophocles

“We love because it’s the only true adventure.” – Nikki Giovanni

“Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.” – Dorothy Parker

“Love is friendship set on fire.” – unknown

***”Love is everything it’s cracked up to be. That’s why people are so cynical about it…It really is worth fighting for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don’t risk everything, you risk even more.” – Erica Jong*** (I love this one.)

“Maybe love is like luck. You have to go all the way to find it.” – Robert Mitchum

“Loves makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.” – Zora Neale Hurston

“Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” – Mark Twain

“Love is more than three words mumbled before bedtime. Love is sustained by action, a pattern of devotion in the things we do for each other every day.” – Nicholas Sparks

“To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.” – Karen Sunde

And reading these, do you remember love?
Do you remember the butterflies in your stomach?
Seeing them, calling them, that first kiss.
Not even romantic love, just the love that it’s possible to share for another person. I was pulling pictures off my wall the other day. There’s me and Katie, smiling, sitting on her car when we were 16. There’s me and Danny in his car on our last day of summer. There’s me and Emily, on our road trip to Glenwood Springs. Your best friend, you mom, someone, anyone. There’s enough to go around.
My first memory of perfect love remains a picture of a summer afternoon spent in a park, laying in the grass looking up into the trees. I took a picture then, I’ve posted it before. It’s perfect. We held hands, our bodies not touching as we soaked up the sunshine, wasting a perfect weekend afternoon with each other. I thought then that this was something special, I had no idea where it would lead. I shifted, laying my head on his stomach, in a that questioning tense first touch. Now, I slip my hand into his and know that it’s normal. It feels like home.
Too often, I think, we forget the little things that made us fall in love. The glint in his eyes when he looks at me, the way he makes me laugh, the long drives that we do early in the morning, it’s these things that make me think that sometimes we let everything else get in the way of feelings.
Tonight, everything got the better of me, and for the fifth time in as many days, I found myself sniffling into the phone, in a foul mood, trying to pick a fight with him just to make myself feel better. And for the fifth time in five days, he came to my rescue, making me laugh, not letting me fight with him, not letting me think about what was wrong. He makes it better. He doesn’t understand, he tells me that, but he tells me that no matter what, he’ll listen to me and be there for me. He sympathizes, and sometimes that’s enough. He talks to me until I’m calmer, until everything has fallen back into place. He does the cute things that have become the things we share between us. He gets to love me more today, so I let him, even though he doesn’t. He couldn’t.
So tell someone you love that you really love them.
Do it, and remember when you fell in love.
And save that feeling. It’s that one that you just can’t bottle up. You just have to try to keep it and hope it will never end.
Good luck.

oh and p.s. here it is….my favorite memory of the day I realized I loved him.