Drivel

Thoughts written as I was sitting in a Second Cup. I had been invited out for coffee by a friend, and was left to my own devices to find amusement when the girl he liked called him. Here is the fruit of my boredom...

I dream of seeing you when you are old. Your skin will be soft and wrinkled; your silver hair will be thinned to near baldness. I will be happy to know you had never even attempted to hide it with a bad comb-over. You reason that, in your life, you had laughed at too many uncles and your father’s friends to try it with a clear conscience. Your eyes will be magnified by the thick lenses you will have to wear; but I will tease you that it only means that I get to see even more of your beautiful eyes. You will hold my gaze and tell me they are only reflecting the beauty you see in me. I will give you a little laugh and lightly slap you across your shoulder, letting you know I can see through your flattery, but inside I will feel the same thrill as I did when I was a girl and looked as pretty as I felt.


I look forward to hear what you will tell our children as they move out of our nest and begin their lives apart from us. Your advice will fill their ears with wisdom from our life together; my head will fill with the memories that cast that counsel. The peace and calmness of our home will be restored once more, reminiscent of a time before teenagers, children or babies, when it was but the two of us. Now, as then, I can hear you call to me, “I love you…” from some other room in the house. I will follow the sound of your voice and when I find you, you will embrace me from behind. You will whisper to me that I am your happiness, your reason for being. My heart will be so light with the joy I feel to be near you. I will respond to your words with a kiss loaded with my own blissful thoughts of you.

I am eager to sit with you outside, watching the sun rise after talking all night. We will have been fighting about some trivial thing which felt so much bigger a few hours before. After our anger has been spent, we will begin the act of reconciling by holding each other’s hands, and eventually cuddling in the chilled dawn air. You will wrap me up in the sweater you had been wearing, and your scent embraces me just as your arms do. Your own smell is a gentle presence reminding me of everything you mean to me. You catch me breathing in the fragrance that is you and I will hear you laugh. You tell me that on those rare occasions when we find ourselves sleeping apart, in different beds in distant cities, you have breathed in my own scent from my pillow as you lay waiting to doze off. You will say that some little piece of me is needed to close your eyes and let go. Much like our youngest daughter, I think, whose purple teddy is required before laying down to sleep.

I desire to stand beside you, my hand holding yours, as we recite our vows of love and of a promised lifetime together. A few years later, I will be anxious to inform you that you will be a father. This is something I will say to you three times, each time with cheeks flushed, anticipating your reaction... you never disappoint me. In our years together we will relate to each other the daily trials and delights that make up life. Through my tears I will recount the story of our eldest child’s first steps, and her subsequent spill into the corner of the coffee table, as we sit in the emergency waiting room. In this same room, at some future time you will tell me how our son’s broken arm isn’t the end of the world; it is just the end of his baseball season. During these growing years we will make known to each other our hopes for our family, for each other, and we will also share our fears. Every day, I will tell you the most important thing I have in my heart… “I love you”. Again and again, you never disappoint me with your reaction.

I long to feel your lips on mine; every day your touch reminding me of our first kiss after you will have walked me to my door. One of your hands will guide me by the small of my back; the other entwines its fingers through mine. Since then, our hands have spent much of their time together like this, a better fit could not be found for either of us. From the beginning of our relationship to the end of our time together, your touch will be a constant source of both comfort and strength to me. You have never shied away from telling me that through each one of the thousands of kisses we’ve shared I have always made you feel like I did on our first date; that even now you get weak in the knees each time our lips meet.

I wait with bated breath for all these things; for my senses to be filled with you.