You know who you are: A love story

You know who you are.

You come home from work, take off your pants, walk around naked for a while. Then you lay out on the couch, extremities facing south-and-southwest, a remote in one hand, channel-surfing, a cold drink in the other hand. Restless, you get up, slip on your pants, and find yourself in your room.

You park yourself at your desk chair, turn on the computer, and idly face-voyeur facebook, clicking across pictures of barely known friends, half forgotten acquaintances, past regrets and current objects-of-infatuation, people you are friends with, yet find yourself trembling in their presence, beating the forest of your mind for the right words to their response to make them laugh in order for you to establish a happy beachhead with your presence–a positive anchor point with your amusing personality, that you hope they’ll merge with your reflected smile in their eyes.

Disappointed in yourself for not actually expressing your feelings to them, you push the disappointment away by telling yourself that, in your mind, that comment you made on Facebook or Twitter was just as good as telling them you love them and that you’re loving them right now, at this very moment.

Because love is the final frontier. Captain Kirk got it wrong. Geographically speaking, space is the final frontier. And if you live in New York City or Tokyo, where even parking spaces sell for $100,000, space has considerable value. Love, however, stretches beyond the bounds of distance. You know this already. I’m just reminding you of it.

You know who you are. You’ve fallen in love with that friend of yours. The way they look down when they talk to you, or move their hands hands when they tell a story almost like a conductor except you’re the orchestra and – Hey! You dropped your kettle drum stick on the finale drum roll! Pay attention, young man! – their eyes opening-and-closing like butterfly wings, and the way they pause between words … every gesture is an emergency … you’re trapped — comfortably trapped — by their smile.

And how could you resist? Why should you? Because love is not a choice. Love is a response. And something in you has responded to something in them. Don’t try to figure it out. That’s like trying to figure out art. If you can figure out art, you reduce it to a craft. Unravelling the mystery defuses the appeal. Good love, like good art, remains that way because it can’t be explained. To explain it is to rub away all the charm.

You thought maybe they weren’t into you, but then they said something that gave you hope. It was so unexpected that you almost imagined as if you’d dreamed it.

A room full of people. Appetizers, beverages, interesting conversation and your friend, the one you love, visited each person, smiling, asking questions, listening, saying some kind words. Then your friend arrived beside you. You remember saying something insignificant.

Your friend pulled you outside to the back porch, pointed at the moon, howled. You laughed. Then your friend looked at you, straight in the eye, wiped her hand on your shoulder. You asked: “Why’d you do that?” Your friend said: “You’ve got some fairy dust on your shoulder.” With that, she returned inside to connect-the-dots and multiply smiles.

Eventually, you’ll tell your friend what you really think, how you really feel. Then again, maybe you won’t. Sometimes, true loves are better kept alive inside our own imagination, where we create the endings.

You know you are.