"honey, I'm just trying to find my way to you."

I wrote this years ago. I came across it in my drafts today, and I thought to myself that I used to worry about the silliest things.

Here's to the happy fact that time does heal and things do change and eventually you get perspective on things you thought might end you in the past.

I met your wife today.  Of course, I recognized her immediately, even before the point that your sister introduced us.  But for obvious reasons, I didn't say so.  There she was, talking with her now-in-laws, casually perched on an ottoman with her legs tucked to the side. So cozy. So braggy.  An imposter in nobody's mind but my own.  In the midst of my vain efforts not to stare, I watched as her head fell back, her mouth open with laughter while having the same sort of effortless conversation I used to have with your family. 

She smacked of ease and confidence.  Equal parts repulsed and envious, I couldn't help but relate.  Because that's the way you act when the someone you want, wants you.  Comfortable.  As if you belong.

My point is, I met your wife today.  And she was nice enough.  I knew who she was, and as I pretended not to know who she was, I wondered if she was using that same strategy on me.  I wondered if she knew me just by my face as that one girl he never called his girlfriend.  That one girl he only kissed in the dark.  That one girl who made sandwiches for his siblings as he ignored her on family vacation.  That girl who just wouldn't catch on when he stopped responding to texts, like an insect he couldn't shake off. That girl he finally had to tell he didn't want anymore on a late-night phone call as the approaching Winter took her by the throat.

I wondered if she knew, this wife. The word turned to chalk in my mouth. Wife. I wondered if I should be embarrassed.  But then, I realized I was being full of myself.  Because in order for her to know anything about me, you would have to consider me worth mentioning. You would have needed to have regard for me in the first place. What lunacy.

In any case, I met your wife today.  And as I drove home away from her on the same roads I had driven away from you all of those mornings during the witching hour, I found myself foolishly wishing that we were still in touch, somehow.  I wished that we had kept some sort of dilapidated relationship where I would wait for your attention and humor you when you needed it.  The kind where I could text you right now, say something like, Hey. Met your wife tonight.  She was just lovely, followed by a passive-aggressive emoticon.

Even if we'd both know I didn't mean it.  Even if I thought she was loud and stringy and ineloquent and the headband stretched across her forehead looked absurd.