We met in our youth. So full of fire and life. The desert winds blew hard and each night we kept them at bay together. We gave no thoughts to the future. Both of us thought of the past of the pain and heartbreaks that had come before. We cautiously fell in love.
She had golden eyes that burned so bright a man could be lost in them. I had never experienced anything like those eyes in my twenty two years of life. She was strong and fierce a modern day warrior bravely carving her own way through life. I was drawn to her as she was drawn to me. The flames from the campfire danced on her face as we shared wine and laughed the seconds of our lives ticking by.
I felt so much fear and every part of me wanted to run for my life. I drove towards her and the city I had now decided would be my home. This was the only way to have her in my life. There was no previous experience that I could lean on to help me through this. I was now grown and with this decision I entered a new world. I reentered society after years of constant travel and simple savage days.
We met each others families. We shared birthdays and holidays together. We learned to live together, we learned to travel together. We learned to fight with each other. Slowly it happened life pushed for decisions to be made. She accepted the challenge and dove into a new world. A world of books and and concepts I couldn’t understand. She fought with everything inside of her to make it through the experience to maintain despite the constant stress and anxiety. Slowly a a small distance began to grow between us. From morning until night she was over her head struggling for air in the new world she had entered. This new world was foreign to me, so far away from the desert that had sparked our love. More and more of my time was spent alone. The walls slowly closed in and the mountains and deserts the open road sang for me to return louder and louder each day.
Our isolation grew and soon our world consisted of just the two of us. We began to live for the future instead of the present. We dreamed of the light at the end of the tunnel. We grew older and older each day waiting for the good to come. I knew that this way no way to live that the promise of tomorrow was degraded by the bitterness of today. I began to resent her and her I. The fighting increased and questions began to arise. There never was a question of whether or not we truly loved one another but whether life would send us in the same direction or if the path would split.
The inevitable occurred and as it tends to things came to a head. She was offered an incredible career opportunity in a city I knew I could not live in. I hated her for making me chose for changing for growing. I dreamed of those early days around the fire and wished for them now. I grieved for the lose of my youth of the carefree days. I grieved for the people we had been. I hated myself for becoming so domesticated for losing my strong wild spirit. I longed for my mountains for the thin air to make me pure again. I knew she would go with or without me. The option was put on the table. The undoing of everything that had occurred or forever the memory of those gold eyes. I couldn’t forget her I couldn’t forget those times. She chose to forget me. She chose to continue on as if we had never known each other at all. I booked a ticket to the Swiss Alps that same day.
Months spent high above the cities and towns below. Looking down on the lights far beneath me each representing a life a story a personal narrative. I moved I poured my all my energy into putting one foot in front of another. I sucked in could air that burned my longs and felt the wind burn my face. I drank only water, slowly forgetting the feeling of a roof over my head. At night I dreamed of her, gold eyes shining wet and sad that last night as the reality came clear to both of us. When the haunting memory of her became to much to bare I moved on. I flew over oceans, I walked to the most remote furthest reaches I could find. Her ghost rode along side me.
I continue to move my feet, continue to dream of her at night. I know now that she will always be here with me and have come to terms with it. When I think about what it would have been like if I had chosen differently I think about those nights around the fire.