Caught Between The Moon And New York City

          “Once in your life, you find them – someone who turns your heart around… wake up and it’s still with you, even though you left them way across town, wondering to yourself ‘hey, what’ve I found?’”

          Terry makes me smile. 

          We haven’t talked in… I don’t even remember the last time, it was through FaceBook or something – a place he never really hangs out at and our emails are non-existent now.  It’s been nine years since we last talked regularly, in 2001.  I’d just met Roger, and like so many of my guy friends, I let go of him.  Once the hand is dropped, you never quite go back to holding them again. 

          But thinking of Terry, even now, is a warm summer breeze in my memory of twists and turns, hurricanes and tornadoes. 

          He lived in New York, and I in California.  We were online buddies – not even sure where or how on the internet we found each other.  But we clicked, we confided, and we laughed.  This is why Terry stands out to me.  Someone who gave me the genuine giggles with his warmth, someone that liked who I was behind the mask.  There were no false bravados with this one.  I had nothing to lose – he wasn’t a potential date, being thirty-seven states away and all.  Talking with him was like slipping into an old, faded pair of blue jeans.  Relaxed, and comforting. 

          All of my life, I have had crushes on the men around me.  Not just slight infatuations, but anything from sparkling cherry crushes to deep mind-bending obsessions.  Terry was a tasty treat, like a sno-cone on a hot day after running around in my bare feet with the green grass tickling my toes and beach songs playing all around me in a summery symphony. 

          He was a small comfort in a year that saw me lose my home, and my family. 

          Our conversations were effortlessly meaningful.  I don’t think we held much of anything back – baring our skin without having to bare our souls.  While constantly feeling with others that I was always holding something back, or hiding behind trees thick with secrets, it all fell away whenever Terry greeted me with a sunny, funny message. 

                    OMT:           Hey Dix, what’s the haps?

                    Dixi89:         Heya baby, how’s it hangin’..?

                    OMT:           Gotta send you the latest mail from a woman
                                      who is clearly out of her mind.

                    Dixi89:         Oh, really

                    OMT:           Shit headed your way.. INCOMING!

                    Dixi89:         Let me read…

         

And so it would go.  We passed many an hour sharing and advising on our dating horrors. We could have sold popcorn to these events and walked away richer for it.  I liked to compare us to the likes of George and Gracie.  He humored me without fault, and I loved him dearly for it.  I loved to set him up so he could knock his one-liners out of the park. 

          It wasn’t all sunshine and roses – we had our deeper conversations too.  Over time, the friendship bloomed, and followed many paths across the hills and valleys of our separate lives.  I don’t know that Terry ever realized how vastly different our worlds were.  He was an intellect – an intelligent, scientific book-smart type with charisma, wealth and was still so down-to-earth.  I was a blue-collar worker, street-smart with my head in the clouds and a raw charm that my looks never lived up to. 

          We shared a love of speed.  Fast cars and faster men/women to entertain us.  He would tell me of his beloved Ducati, a bullet bike he would ride up and down the state of New York, to New Jersey when he began to commute there.  My tales were relegated to sillier things that escaped me in between my meager shifts that left me dizzy with exhaustion. 

                   Dixi89:         I did have some fun, at least, at that
                                     miserable job last night

                   OMT:           How so?

                   Dixi89:         Turned the parking lot into a hi-speed
                                     road course with my newest toy acquisition

                   OMT:           Which is?

                   Dixi89:         an r/c hot rod

                   OMT:           I’m somehow not surprised  :-P

                   Dixi89:         I love how well you do that

                   OMT:           Do what?  Humor you?  Or surprise you?

                   Dixi89:         humor me – few ever bother to try   :-\

          There came a summer when our banter turned flirty without either of us realizing it.  It wasn’t intense, just fun and light-hearted.  We’d begun to mix phone conversations with our online chatter.  There came one warm evening when things seemed to take an unexpected turn.   

                   OMT:           You know, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to
                                      hear that beautiful voice of yours
                                      right now

                   Dixi89:         ah, aren’t you the sweet one tonight

                   OMT:           Seriously, Dix… if you could read my mind
                                     right now, it’s not “sweet” thoughts running
                                     through it…

          I was taken aback, and yet immensely curious at the same time.  I was twenty-eight years old, and had lost my innocence a million moons ago.  But this night, Terry sparked some sort of virginal wonder in me.

          I don’t know how it happened, really.  Perhaps there was a magic moment for one split second in our friendship, like a portal in time that knew nothing of reality.  Maybe it was staring out our windows upon the same moon with three thousand miles between us – a whisper in the wind to tell us that anything said at that moment would never see the light of day. 

          When I heard his husky voice over the phone, carrying me along in a river of fervent ardor, something overcame me, and I allowed him to take me on this sexy journey where inhibitions were left far behind. 

          I’d never experienced anything like it before, and much like any other “first,” there would never be a moment like it. 

          For a brief time, I began to see Terry in a different light.  Suddenly, I wondered what he looked like.  I wondered how it might feel to share a kiss, following a long candlelit conversation.  I wondered a million other little things, but mostly wondered how in the hell I was going to convey this to him. 

          Suddenly, I had something to hide.

          Over that summer, I came into a small inheritance.  There was much turmoil in settling my grandmother’s estate, of which I was an unwilling participant.   I was torn between wanting to shun her “gift” that came with strings re-attaching me to my family, whom I’d spent the last year cutting ties from, and needing to pay the mounting stack of bills on the corner of my secondhand desk. 

          Once the decision was made to accept the money, I decided I’d earned enough of it to do something completely impulsive and daring.  I began making plans to take my older sister on a trip to New York.  Conveniently, why not ask Terry if he would like to rendezvous upstate in Saratoga while I was there? 

          It took every bit of courage I could muster up in my insecure bones to ask him that.  I just about fell out of my chair when he agreed.  Not sure if we had the same intentions or not, that would be something to clear up later.  Like when we were “dancing down the street with a cloud at our feet.”  I was ready for the moon to hit my eyes like a big pizza pie.  I was ready for amore. 

I was at the very least open to the idea of it, anyway.

The fantasies were innocent at first.  Like a schoolgirl, I had dreams of kisses beneath the New York autumn moon.  Our talks were tinged with my hidden feelings.  If he ever suspected them, I never knew and he was a gentleman enough to not tell me.

My sister knew nothing of any of this.  All she knew was that for a day or two I’d be going off on my own to meet a friend.  Truth so far as I knew it.  But in typical fashion, she ended up making things so complicated that the expense grew beyond anything I could afford.   With a heavy heart, I cancelled the trip.

Terry and I were never to meet.

Things do happen for a reason. 

The holidays were coming upon us – the fall had come and gone and winter was barking at the door.  I continued to talk to him about getting on a plane by myself and coming to his side of the world.  Maybe after the new year. 

I had been ill with a mystery virus for several months, and was losing my will to fight it.  I was tired.  It wasn’t a depression like I’d experienced in years past.  My body was wracked with fever, my life had been in upheaval over the past year, yet there was no time for recovery.  Work wasn’t a luxury and in my line of minimum-paying jobs, there were no sick days.  I wouldn’t have fought the end if it’d come into sight.

The year 2000 was coming to a close, and the official start of the new millennium was screaming down the pike.

                   Dixi89:         So, what are the big NYE plans?

                   OMT:           Hmm.  See friends, hang out, don’t
                                     drive.  The usual.  You?

                   Dixi89:         thinkin’ I’m just gonna stay home

                   OMT:           That’s too bad – messing around with
                                     the maladjusted is kinda fun.  Still not
                                     feeling well?

Dixi89:         I kind of like the idea of staying home
                  and just vegging.  Hang out with my
                  favorite movie couple.

                   OMT:           Who are..? 

                   Dixi89:         Harry and Sally, natch.  Watch it every
                                     New Year’s.  Fits well with that whole
                                     “resolution” thing.

                   OMT:           Resolve.  A wonderful thing in the right
                                     doses.

                   Dixi89:         Agreed.

          Two days later I received the email that would change everything.  On that first day of the new century, my husband would make his first appearance in the rest of my life.

          Terry was there to see all of it. 

                  

                   OMT:           You seem rather squirrely these
                                      days…

                   Dixi89:         {giggle}

OMT:           Yeah – and full of those lately too..
                  baby girl, are you gettin’ laid out there
                  on the west coast?  I’m so completely
                  jealous.

                    Dixi89:       Ter, I've never been so happy... hell, I've
                                     just plain never been happy that I can
                                     recall... this is the best thing, I can tell
                                     ya that

                   OMT:           I’m genuinely glad for you

                   Dixi89:         Feel free to slap me down when I get too
                                     happy, mmk?

                   OMT:           Nope, no such luck.  Enjoy it, run with it.

          Over the next year, Terry himself would meet the love of his life.  He’s gone on to have a wonderful life and cherishes his wife, his family, and his work.   I was quite amused at his diatribe of how Helen slowly wore his bachelor lifestyle down. 

          There are few bright spots in this life I’ve lead.  So much of it has been touched with sadness, confusion and disillusionment.  I’ve wondered a time or two what might have happened, had I ever made it to New York.  I do know for certain it was never meant to be.

          We’ve been relegated to the occasional small talk via brief emails, every year or two.  That is my touch of sadness with Terry.  I miss our repartee, our connection.   Love comes and goes in many forms, such as leaving me a memory to store away in my trunk of sentiments.

          I’m surprised at myself, to feel the sting of tears determined to find something bittersweet despite my smile at the thought of him. I don’t know that I ever cross his mind at all until I show up in his inbox.  Skipping the stones of our words into a lake as the sun slowly sets. 

          When the hell did I turn into this walking, talking Hallmark commercial?

          And why do people always have to leave?

          “If you get caught between the moon and New York City, the best that you can do is fall in love…”

© Kymberlie Ingalls

Lyrics: Arthur’s Theme / Christopher Cross