Saturday, June 21, 2008

Sunday Scribbling #116: Happy Ending

Twenty years ago was a hotter June than this. Twenty years ago on a southern June night, I was sitting on the hood of a car with my ex-boyfriend and all the sudden realized: "My life starts now."

I had graduated from college just a few weeks beforehand. I was hanging around for the summer, "finishing up an incomplete." My life at that point was a big question mark. I had a very vague grasp on the future. I guess I thought I would be going to graduate school at the University of Tennessee and driving back to my college town on the weekends to hang-out with all my friends (who were still in college) and continue our regular college life. It was all very nebulous. I'd been accepted in U.T's English department for graduate school, but I really had no plan. The future went no further than the night before me.

But on that night, June 4, I saw my future with perfect clarity, and he was sitting on the hood of the car right there with me. To think that moment might not have happened used to frighten me. Sometimes in later years I would have those kinds of dreams where we are lost to each other, and I'd wake feeling as if I'd been weeping all night. I am still relieved and overjoyed to find him here with me.

We had been officially broken-up for 8 months at that point, but the year before that had not been a good one. It's all so complicated--was then, and is now. Who can explain who we were then? But I had let him go and had moved on. It was a choice I made every day. At twenty-two, I knew that I'd already had the love of my life. I knew that I could and would go on. I'd get married someday, have kids. But I knew that what we'd had at 19 would never be replaced.

There was this poem called "Four Poems for Robin" by Gary Snyder that I saw as my future. I read this so many times during my senior year in college that I had it nearly memorized. I was resigned to this fate in the last stanzas of the poem:

Only in dream, like this dawn,
Does the grave, awed intensity
Of our young love
Return to my mind, to my flesh.
We had what the others
All crave and seek for;
We left it behind at nineteen.
I feel ancient, as though I had
Lived many lives.
And may never now know
If I am a fool
Or have done what my
karma demands.
But on that muggy June night 20 years ago, all kinds of things fell into place. I can't remember what led up to us sitting on the hood of the car. I can't remember much of what was said, except for a quote from a Dire Straits song. What I do remember is that powerful feeling that all moments in my life had led up to this place, this person, and this future.

Some people scoff at young love. I do it myself sometimes, because 19 just seems so, well, young. (And so does 20, and 21, and 22, for that matter!) A young woman at church once asked me: "How do you know who is 'the one'? Do you ever just completely know?" To answer that question with a yes is the most I can do, because to explain that knowing is impossible. Sometimes, you just know.

And the knowing begins the happy ending.


(Need a weekly writing prompt? Check out Sunday Scribbling here!)

6 comments:

anno said...

This is a wonderful story--and an important reminder that if you don't have faith, if you don't keep turning the pages, you might not make it to the happy ending that's right there waiting for you, just in reach.

Granny Smith said...

A skillful capture of a special moment and its aftermath. Thank you for a lovely story.

Jon said...

Loved this story. Thanks for sharing such a meaningful moment.

danni said...

beautiful story of your love and your faith in it --- and you are so right - the "knowing" of it all is beyond explanation, isn't it???

rebecca said...

i guess one doesn't know really...when we are in love we always feel he/she is the one, yet for many this is not the case.

i met my husband at 16, he 17. we were kids! kids! and yet, fast forward, and we're still together. many doomed our marriage from the beginning saying we were too young to have it a go and weren't mature enough to embark on something so serious as marriage. they were right. but we both grew together and found our way together and found how to work it together. we've always had each other to lean on, learn from and depend on. and it has thrived and it has survived.

i'm so glad you found your happily ever after 20 years ago and, as a heart that knows crazy, sexy young love, i know it was a risk that neither you nor i could guarantee it would work, yet felt deep inside that it really would.

this was a great take on the prompt and thanks for taking me back to my young love once again....

Michelle said...

I'm totally with you when it comes to knowing 'he's the one'. My husband and I are celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary next week - July 2nd! I was 19 when we got married, he was 21. We were young and stupid by all accounts... but we knew we were meant to spend our lives together. We eloped on a hot summer day in New England and our honeymoon was spent in a tent in Vermont... but none of that mattered... we had love!