I Sometimes Wonder

I Sometimes Wonder is a story that came from the hopeless romantic side of me. The side that likes to wander into little “what ifs” every now and then.

Maybe I can blame the “ber” months for it. There’s something about this time of year that makes everything feel a little different, almost magical.

NGL, fall used to make me sad. I think I was connecting it with endings and loss. But somewhere along the way, that changed. Lately, I’ve been finding a strange kind of equanimity in it all.

I still feel sadness, loss, anger, and all the other not-so-pretty emotions from time to time, I just don’t carry them around the way I used to. They come, I notice them, I sit with them for a while, talk about them, and eventually, they leave.

And somewhere between those sad little moments, at 1:00 a.m. on a Tuesday night, I started writing this story.

The first version was much sadder. At the time, I was convinced I was writing about loneliness. But when I looked at that diary page again, it didn’t feel like me.

Maybe it wasn’t loneliness at all. Maybe it was yearning. (My favorite thing to romanticize, clearly.)

Yearning for what, exactly?

To know what it would feel like to be known by another human being so well that I never have to ask to be found.

So, at 2:00 a.m., I scrapped the first draft and started over (fully aware that I had to physically be in the office by 9:30).

What came out instead was this.

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I sometimes wonder,
what it would be like to have a pair of eyes searching for me in a room full of people.
Eyes that would look over, noticing when I’ve gone quiet, when the room has grown louder than I can hold.
They’d catch me zoned out with a polite smile on my face, trapped in a one-sided conversation with someone I barely know.

Knowing I’d stay a little too long, smiling through the part where I wished I were elsewhere,
I wonder if those eyes would cross the room for me,
walk themselves over,
and slip a hand around my waist like they’d been reaching for me all along.

And when that stranger asks about my plans for my career, if I want to get married, if I want children, and all the other questions I have answers to, just not necessarily for a stranger.
I wonder if he’d smile politely, excuse both of us by inventing a completely fake but wonderfully creative emergency.
And I’d find myself blushing, trying hard not to laugh, already seeing the mischief behind his perfectly serious face.

Then he’d take my hand,
and somehow the room would become a little less loud.
We’d drift through a few more conversations, say hello to a few more people, laugh at things neither of us would remember tomorrow.
And when we were finally ready, we’d leave.

On our way back, he’d tease me about how I’ve always been easier to read than I think I am.
And how I’ve always had a habit of leaving with my eyes first.
And I’d tease him back,
refusing to give his annoyingly nosy eyes the satisfaction of being right,
as if those eyes had gone unnoticed themselves.

I wonder what it would feel like to be known like that.
To have someone who grounds the chaos, and makes the world feel a little lighter.
To never have to ask to be found.