Do you ever sit and play the “What If?” game?
Do you believe in luck, or fate?
Do you think there are things that just fall in someone’s lap?
Do you believe in random coincidences?
Iain and I went through some of our old emails to each other last week. I have hundreds from him. Our subject lines constantly changing. Cheeky lines, song lyrics, or the local weather report.
I go back and read the words he wrote to me just under a year ago. He didn’t know my face, my kiss, or the danger of feeding me Curry late at night…But he knew the lines and curves of my heart like we had been lovers and friends for lifetimes.
It's funny how some of the things he wrote to me still make me blush, and cringe with flattery.
A couple days ago, I emailed him my favorite lines he had sent me knowing he hadn’t read what he had written since he pressed “send”.
We sat there that night, looking at the dates of certain emails, and talking about where we were when we wrote them,
"Where were we sitting when we first talked on the phone?"
"Did you used to sit in the kitchen while we were on MSN or the couch?"
"Oh my God, I was half naked when I wrote you that…"
"AH! I almost died when you said that!!!"
If that one October night, I hadn’t been sitting on my ass, browsing MySpace while watching Sex and the City, hadn’t spotted that handsome bloke from Surrey, and had balls enough to email him to say hi...
Where would my life be?
I started really thinking about this and became frightened at the sad, sad story my over active, "all knowing", retarded brain came up with.
But what’s even sadder, is that I know that the convoluted story I came up with, really isn’t that far fetched.
It seems like it now, but if I think about the years before, my life would be alarmingly, eh, dull.
Triple, Decaf, Venti, Sugar-Free Vanilla, Non Fat, No Foam, 143.5 degree, Latte Dull.
When I met Iain, I was a Starbucks Assistant Manager.
I ate lots of croissants and drank shots of Espresso like water.
I had an increasingly serious relationship with my vibrator, a Saturn, and a Chihuahua that hated the pink sweater I forced her to wear. I smoked Marlboro Light 100’s because I was a pussy smoker and although Lucky Strikes looked cooler, I couldn't handle them.
I eventually switched over to Marlboro Lights because the 100's didn’t fit in the pink cigarette holder I bought myself.
-Are you catching how dull that was?-
If Iain decided that I looked too much like a twat, or that I was too young for his liking (we’re 6 years apart…6A if you will..ha..he…ok, bad joke) my life would probably look a little something like this:
I would finally get fired from Starbucks sometime mid February 2006 due to
A) My manager finally figuring out that I would sit outside on my lunch for 2 hours chain smoking, and eating stolen croissants whilst plan her death and how to blow up the store without getting caught.
B) My manager finally figuring out that instead of starting work at 4:15am like I was supposed to, I would prop open the back door and chain smoke until 4:45, and then eat stolen croissants topped with stolen packets of honey and cream cheese for breakfast whilst planning how to set the store aflame.
C) Me throwing a "venti extra hot" fucking bitch fit at customers and coworkers and screaming, “That’s IT! I’m blowin’ this place up YOU MOTHER FUCKERS!!!!!”
I would finally fill out the application to Barnes and Noble that had been sitting on my nightstand.
By late February they would have hired me as a shift lead, because they wouldn’t think I had enough managerial experience for anything higher, and I couldn’t exactly ask my ex-manager for a recommendation.
I would spend my days rearranging book shelves, ringing up customers, and helping people find books that were right in front of their fucking, blind ass faces.
I think of myself driving to and from Barnes and Noble everyday with a pack of cigarettes, a pink lighter, Johnny Cash coming out the speakers, and a stack of paper backs bought with my employee discount that I planned on reading during my half hour lunch breaks.
My depression would come and go, as it does…But I would be lonely and bitter due to the bad dates with Sacramento boys that were in bands, or in College, or Christian, Celibate (or both), worked in retail and were JUST NOT FOR ME.
I think I would eventually get out of Sacramento.
Maybe get transferred to a store in after year or so. I’d fall in love with the city and new surroundings, but would squint my eyes to make the skyline look like London.
I would write on the sly, or on commercial breaks during Grey's Anatomy. I would never send anything to magazines or even start a real blog as my fear of failure would choke the idea dead.
Perhaps the closing manager would be cute.
Maybe he grew up in Seattle. Maybe he would wear glasses and like Paul Frank Tshirts.
Maybe the sex would be bad, but my dog would like him…Maybe I could convince myself I was happy.
Maybe he would turn out to be my alternate life partner. The Side B. The only guy on the West coast I could tolerate.
We would never marry. He would smoke and I would smoke, too. We’d carry a flask of whiskey in the glove compartment of our Ford Escort and freak out whenever cops drove by.
He wouldn’t understand my depressive disorder, but would pretend to well enough that I would believe that he was supporting me, not just tolerating me.
We'd go on vacation to Monterey for our anniversary. We'd stay in the same B&B every year, and it would have the best orange juice. I'd like it because the owner was French and would talk to me about what it was like growing up just outside of Paris. She'd say to him,
"You should take her there! She would like it very much!"
And he'd rub my arm and say, "Someday if we can afford it."
And I'd fakely smile, knowing that we've been able to afford it for the past 3 summers.
I would never feel complete. I would never see Europe with him. He would just be the nicer version of my Ex…
I would be tired, and aged, and exhausted with trying to understand why I felt so empty, never realizing that I let my dream of being a writer in London die.
Never realizing that my wish of “Please just let me find love. Please just let my have a good husband” on countless birthday candles had blown out when I was 20, when I never jumped at the opportunity to break away from my stale, saltine cracker way of life.
And then, as I sit thinking of my alternate life…I wonder if I would ever wake up. I hope that I would wake up.
I would hope that my passport wouldn't expire with only one stamp on it.
I would like to think that I’m as smart as I think I am…
During our 8th year together he would buy a Silk Screening shop in downtown Napa. Strangely, I would find being the Store Manager for the local Barnes and Noble and making up the slogans for his Tshirts unfufilling.
I imagine that after the countless nights of crying myself to sleep, the endless guilt, the brutal fact that my life as it was, just wasn’t enough...That he wasn't enough...And the truth would finally cut me so deep that it was either bleed to death, or patch it up and get out.
Strangely, after a month, I wouldn't miss him that much.
I’d renew my passport, and book a flight to London.
Alone.
I would stay in bed and breakfasts, and write, and cry. Cry for my lack of life the past 8 years. The past 30.
What I wonder even more, is if in the back of a Starbucks in Leicester Square, would I see a handsome bloke from
Surrey scrunched over his laptop.
Would he have gray in his hair, and lines on his eyes…
Would he be married, or divorced, or have children…
Would he see me?
Would we...?
I don’t believe in luck. I don’t believe I found Iain on accident.
I don’t believe our life fell in my lap, and just happened to me.
I think I placed myself on the right life path that would allow fate to reach me the way it should.
I think Iain and I have been chasing each other throughout lifetimes. I believe that. I believe we find each other over and over again.
This time I found him online, when I was 20 years old.
I don’t think my entire life has changed simply because I emailed Iain. The initial email, and his response is what sparked it...
But what has changed my life, is the fact that we do not let fear stand in the way.
A country, an ocean...Judgments, immigration laws, money, jobs, depression, family, time, and scrutiny will not stand in the way of MY LIFE.
Of OUR life.
And while I feel Iain and I chase each other through the stars, I don't feel like I can just sit and wait and think that everything will work out.
It is a conscious choice, every single day, to stay on the correct path. To stay strong, and stay clear, and to stay simple.
When Iain came into my life, I was ready for anything, and now together, we are ready for anything.
Anything that luck/fate/coincidence/God/The Universe/Tom Cruise has in store for us....
So, bring it on....
Can't touch this....
(Insert other lame pop culture reference here: ______ )
Ps. Sorry for the gigantic spaces, and if there are words missing...I wrote this in Word and apparently they don't get along...OH! And if you put "Tshirts" through spell check they suggest "Tits"....
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