Before We Meet Again
Sometimes, we don’t meet in the most convenient way. The initial introduction is a fleeting moment in which we’re left with nothing more than some contact information. In the immediate future, our only option is to keep in touch, so we do.
We email, we text, we Skype. We talk on the phone, check in with each other on AIM or Gchat or Facebook. We do it all, just so we can go beyond the fleeting moment that initially brought us together, because when we meet good people, we want them to stay close. If we can’t have that, we start closing the distance with our minds, thinking of the person as though they aren’t that far, and therein lies the potential for problems.
I’ve fallen for women I have no business falling for. Maybe I met her while she was in town or I was out of town. All it took was some good chemistry brewing between us, and we decided, why not? Let’s keep in touch and see what happens. Then, everything goes well, we’re getting along famously and the two of us decide to take this one step further and spend a weekend together.
Bad move.
Because things went really, really well. They went better than we both expected. We knew we got along, but not like this. And now look at us. It’s time to say goodbye, and we’re both a mess. Maybe we’re not crying, but this whole saying farewell thing is for the birds it’s so wack. We weren’t prepared to say bye, only hello.
Someone should have warned me against the perils of meeting you again for the very first time. I could have handled the outcome of a risk gone wrong. If things hadn’t turned out like we expected them to, a loss would be something I chalked up to experience as I kept moving in the other direction. But what to make of a win I can’t cherish?
People are going to think I’m talking about long distance relationships, but it’s deeper than that. This is about long distance connections coming together for a brief couple of days and then going away just as quickly. This is about meeting someone who we feel is right for us as evidenced by their endless stream of text messages we save on our phone, and in the end, being proven right. You see, with long distance relationships, a decision has been made that two people are going to make it work. They’re going to stick together apart, until they can no longer be apart together.
With long distance connections, no such decision has been made. Like I said, we never saw it coming in the first place. We just met each other one night, decided to keep in touch over an extended period of time, and decided to meet each other again, this time in a much fuller context than the previous time. And now look at us. We had some great times all the way up until now, when we have to say goodbye. Before we meet again, let’s make sure we remember how this time felt, so we can never feel this way again.
