(NOTE: You know what this is about).
It was on one of our many long bus rides through the vast Kingdom of Thailand that I glanced over at Charlie and had the closest thing to an out-of-body experience that I can shake a stick at. She was oblivious to what was going on as she was staring out the window, deep in thought, with headphones on, perhaps pondering something similar to me. I was locked into an incredible state of flashback and flash-forward, admiring the holy shit out of this girl that had journeyed with me halfway around the world now, for the second time. For a brief couple of minutes, I was able to let myself lose all memory of everything I’ve ever known and then proceeded to gawk like an idiot at this glowing stranger beside me, wondering what the hell she was doing on this bus and how fortunate I was to have landed a seat beside her. “How do I start a meaningful conversation with this girl?” I thought. How did I ever do it in the first place?
I didn't. I was in high-school. I was a different person. I was a puss. She approached me. She made all the moves. All I did was kiss her in the backseat of Braden McCallum's VW Rabbit. All things considered, I wouldn't be who and where I am today if she hadn't taken a chance on me, not once, but twice. The second time, I was hooked.
(NOTE: Prior to falling on my ass, absolutely drunk on love, in my many years of being a single dude I had created my personal version of a “dream girl” in my head. The perfect specimen, complete with the works of witty intelligence, deep personality and spiritual enough to believe in omens and above all - understand me, or at least try to. Physical appearance goes without saying).
Suddenly, I snapped out of my daze and realized where I was and who I was with. Somehow, in the blur of my early twenties, I had found this dream girl from the past and we had launched into orbit almost instantly. We never really slowed down too much to worry about anything else after that.
(NOTE: This next bit is purely therapeutic writing for yours truely. No apologies).
In the dynamic history of myself and this girl I came to refer to as Charlie there was only one brief, yet severe period of “rockiness”during our last summer in Ontario. Ironically, I believe it was a necessary interlude that pushed us forward to where we are now. But at the time, it was straight up brutality. It took place in 10 minutes of one day. I heard things I thought I’d never hear and said things I hoped I’d never say, but everything seemed to come out like it was already written to happen, the same way that people meet serendipitously. The same cool way we originally met. Except in this event it was the opposite of anything cool. It was devastating and disappointing for both of us. Somehow we seemed to run out of breath without raising our voices so we took it outside and walked it off together, with funny bullet points and short bursts of laughter, which normally signified that the battle was over, and the weapons were thrown down. But this time it was just a TV time out for food and a couple drinks before we suited up to butt heads again. This carried on for about two days. There was even a very clichéd moment of callousness that took place at a bus shelter in the rain. It was then that I realized that the true focus of an argument isn’t about who’s right or wrong. It’s about the struggle for both people to understand both points of view, to reach a resolution. It’s not about scoring points by bringing up past mistakes. It’s not about silencing the other person, and it’s not about saying hurtful shit. It’s about building a bridge and getting over it together. Why is that so easy to forget when things get heated?
Then....
“Sunday morning coming down and we still haven’t talked on reasonable grounds yet. I’m waiting for you to wake up completely. Never in my entire life did I ever think I was gonna be that guy sleeping on the fucking couch. I’m pretty sure that it’s impossible to make a smooth transition into moving out, but I’ll do whatever I can to help you believe that this is the best move for me to make right now and that if we keep reminding ourselves what we’re doing this for than everything that we're missing will come back. All of it….
I wanna miss you again, get stoked with you again, journey with you again, get crazy in public places again, yell out “ I love you” again. Do it all again n’ again and forever.”
- written on the back of one of her “to do lists”
Despite the gloomy overcast, it never rained on the crowd the night The Tragically Hip played Harris Park, but Charlie n’ I had the darkest of clouds over us and not even the music could help. What the fuck was happening? We got willingly separated until after the show, then found ourselves leaning on the sidewall of a bodega on Riverside, laying down all the bad cards we’d been holding, trying our hardest to figure out if we were coming to a conclusion or an ending. It was as though we were the last man and woman on earth, that night. The world was eerily silent.
Then the morning came and she was still there.
She said “I still love you.” I said the same.
Then I left for work.
Then she left for Chicago. Lollapalooza.
We both had a long 7 days to shake it off and get our shit together. I never wanted to get outta the relationship, I just wanted to get outta town for good, with her. I was ready to tell her this and she came back with the same idea, along with a beautiful tattoo in a beautiful spot and suddenly everything was fresh again and our minds were open wide. There was no explanation for what went wrong, what had nearly caused us to split and walk away from 5 years of beautiful unity. Something had sparked a fear in us, that threatened our confidence of sharing an ideal life together. We both felt it, but we couldn’t identify it, so we butted heads like dumb beasts. My theory is that we suddenly became bombarded with the big questions of how, when, where and why were we going to spend a life together? Neither of has had found a career, or even really set foot on a steady career path, so how could we even begin to contemplate any thoughts of a family, a house, and everything else that falls under my definition of “settling down.”
But the dust had cleared, and it became excruciatingly obvious that we were nowhere close to settling down for any reason. Thank the Sun, Moon & Stars! We were as restless as kids on a rainy day, but at least we had found an answer. We loved each other enough to roll with the punches. We got wild, like Van City all over again. Then everything else followed and we were back in the business of living out our dreams. Teaming up and conspiring, making lists, saving money, selling everything we didn’t need, staying up too late, getting up too early and feeling great about it because we shared one mutual goal: Get busy travelin’ again.
By October of 2009 we were on the other side, a million miles away from a typical North-American life. Still, a million miles away from a final destination –still many years away from getting it all figured out and settling down and I was glad. We braved a serious shit storm of un-necessary conformity and came out together and tanned in Thailand.
Now, a year has passed, and Charlie is on that bus again, traveling through Thailand, en route to the airport. The seat beside her is empty. I remain here, in the south of Thailand- teaching, writing, building up for something I still can't totally see, but I can feel. Charlie is on her way to Australia, to begin an interesting job at a Road House in the deep outback of the country. As she gets closer and closer to the new destination and the new chapter in her life, I get closer and closer to finishing this piece of writing. But I know that I will never completely close the book on the 6 years, 4 chapters, and the majority of my tenacious twenties, that I shared with Lindsey Ann Furlonger. On the contrary, if anything, I've only just begun writing the reflections of this muse that will continue to inspire me from afar.
(NOTE: Watch Forest Gump. Charlie is my Jenny).
