Dissembling

Monsoon Midmornings
By Michael Martin

The Matt and Ivy Show
Dissembling

My inbox lit up. The number 1 highlighted, bold and italicized Yes mister, you have mail. I stare, breathless in anticipation. It’s a new day, and I am trying to get used to a new concept in my life. One day at a time. The premise is simple. You take what is given and you live in the moment. None of the planning and the worrying that goes with it. None of the mapping out of courses, of plans A through G.

There was no other choice. If Ivy was to stay where she is, where we are, which is for all practical intents and purposes – in limbo. I had to learn to deal with it in this manner. We had no future. But we have the perpetuity of the present. There was nothing to be done about it anyway. We both have lives to lead, and we have built separate roads before meeting. In this lifetime. Yes. I say that with all certainty. In this lifetime.

There has been this constant nagging feeling since I met her years ago. It slowly bubbled up to the surface of my consciousness. She seemed to pop up everywhere I turn. Be there by my side during the most trying of times, although I never told her about it. It made things bearable. When we had our first real talk, it was like talking to myself in a manner. It was easy. And I consider myself a mass of contradictions in the highest order. She had a way with me, of being able to simplify the most complicated of matters, and vice versa. From the look of it as well, I had the same effect on her. Although I was not arrogant enough to accept it and verbalize it, so it remained there hidden and unacknowledged. Until the dams broke the other day and altered the realities we lived in.

I have a different Ivy with me now. She’s a freer one, unbound and unrestrained. I’ve felt a sense of calm too. All my searching is finally done. Everything else has fallen into place and the questions have been answered. So this is where it leads us, surprising as it is, she feels the same way as I do. Then we both end up with the “we can’t” which of course is the crux of it all. This is not the lifetime for it. There will be another, and I will be damned if I don’t find her. I found her now didn’t I? Despite the odds of it all. Four continents and twenty-eight years. She was right under my nose since a decade ago, and I missed her, when I had been free. Free to offer myself whole if she wanted me. I believe it was simply because we were not ready for each other then. There is a season for everything under the sun as the saying goes. It’s our time to find each other, but not the time to be with each other.

We’ve made peace with whom we are. There is a sense of quiet finality to it, to what it will be or will have to be now. We are, but for reasons of how we built our lives, we cannot. On the other hand, there is no running away from it. Our roads lead to each other. So that’s why the great love stories are all tragedies. We hope when there is none. We are unbelievably elated and irrationally scared at the same time. The sureness of it all is frightening, and for one time in your life everything stands in sharp focus. You know, as sure as you are that there is a higher being. And you know that there is no way for both of you to be together. You try to fight it and follow what you know is right. Which makes it worse. Because you cannot bottle it up. You’re screwed either way. But if you’d ask if they would rather not have it to make the roller coaster go away, I think you know what the answer will be. No way.

All this before I open my mail. I’ve been ruined by love. That’s what it is. This is the happiest I’ve ever been. The happiest I’ll ever be. Until tomorrow comes. Isn’t that right Ivy?