Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Can't go Back

Last night, seemingly out of nowhere, a conversation with someone from college crossed my mind. Well . . . it didn't just cross my mind, it hung around like a thick, humid summer's air along the banks of the Ohio on the Bluegrass side. The conversation . . . not so much a conversation, more of a final au revoir moment since I couldn't be what he wanted me to be.

Oiy. I could have been "the Sheriff's wife." For real.

We drank together, hung out, and never made out. That final conversation was about me not wanting, or being able, to spend my life in a little town we both knew. He grew up there; I spent two years there in my youth. College reunited us, so to speak. As to why it crossed my mind last night . . . I don't know. But damn, if it didn't linger like a hooker's perfume.

Even better . . . a dude I dated in high school is now a detective there. Since it is a small town and all, he's pretty much the lead guy. I haven't been back to see the river, bridge, cobble-stone streets, and memories of my youth in ions now. 2002 to be exact, for a wedding. I was there less than 48 hours.

Those people, from along that river, and I still circle around one another, find each other, and hold bonds like story book tales of a lost time and place. Last summer I ran into some of them, on the other side of the state. Good times were had by all. Yet, the little town we all once knew as home . . . I'm like a bad country song. The Sheriff and I have a history, per se, and the detective and I once played tonsil hockey. It's like a sad bar scene from an even sadder 80s movie.

I can't/don't want to go back, but my mind likes to play nightmares with me remembering long forgotten moments of passing, smiles, and touches of the cool evening air.