Adventures in real life
It was a few days after Christmas and I was sitting in a coffee shop on Magnolia Street with a friend from New York. We were talking about the future: Stories we may or may not be writing, relationships that may or may not require pursuit, jobs and colleges and hopes. Trips we need to take and things we need to do, as I tried not to make a big deal about school starting in two weeks. (I’m nervous, so sue me.) It was cold outside, getting colder as the sun set behind the Fort Worth skyline peeking out from behind little shops and old lamp posts. Talking about the future always makes me depressed, so I try to avoid it. I like to make my plans, but I prefer to keep them close to the vest. It’s nobody’s fault; it’s just how I’m wired. My friend and I exchanged hugs at the train station and promised to keep in touch.
A week later it was Saturday night, after three weeks of long shifts and the stress of holiday business. I was sitting on the patio of a bar downtown with my brother and a friend, nursing a few dark beers to keep the chill off. I hadn’t seen this friend in two years, after a brief but highly eventful relationship with the aforementioned brother. Sitting there, cold even under two jackets, it was like picking up where we left off two years ago, as if nothing ever happened. Like standing around the patio outside of the restaurant we were working at the time, sipping beers and talking about kung fu movies and cartoons, comic books and British television.
Another beer, and a shot or three, and it was like nothing had ever changed.
“I miss this,” she finally said, plucking the thought right out of my brain. “I miss just hanging out like this. Going back to your place, drinking, talking. Everybody we worked with wanted in on this, you know, back then.”
I sort-of laughed at that. “That’s because they weren’t fun.”
“No, I’m serious,” my friend continued. “You’re just — so much fun. You, your family? It’s amazing what you guys have, the way you guys are. You may not always think it, but you’ve got it so good.”
Maybe, after all was said and done, she was right.
A lot of things happened before I went home. Run-ins at other bars, an embarrassing foray into hip-hop night on Houston Street, work-related melodrama. My friend and I exchanged numbers — the same numbers we had two years ago, which I didn’t realize until I got home — and promised to call and text and make plans. We’re grown-ups, after all, and it’s been long enough. The past is the past and I’m over the things the did and didn’t happen, things both spoken and left unsaid. And it felt good.
My past and my future met just a week apart, in little bars and coffee shops in Fort Worth. I can’t tell if I’m moving forward or backward now, but at least I’m not standing still.
