I was out at sea, middle of the night, alone, drinking a beer, thinking of then and now and the time in between.
When I think of the past, of the spin I put on it, of the effect I allowed it to have on the present; how I went through a decade bouncing around as if my life was a commercial interrupting a program…
I had let ten years waste, taking my divorce from Zennie as the ‘end’ of all that would or could matter. When in reality, Zennie had been more a delusion than real; a person I preferred to live in dreams.
If I had loved her, seeing her on the monitor, I would have raced down the hall, run to her, screamed her name, grabbed her in my arms, unconcerned about what or how or when.
If I loved her it would have boiled up within me, shutting off contemplation of reactions.
But I saw her and held, thinking about what I should do. I stood, reasoning that if I did this, than that, pondering in the land of If….
Which meant, I never loved her.
I looked at the starry sky, swallowed a mouthful of beer and decided that I wanted someone on this boat with me. A woman who knew life as I knew it. A woman who wanted to live the same life as I did.
And I would find her.