topeka

We’d been dating for over three years. Seemed like it was heading in the right direction, whatever the right direction is. Maybe that’s why I shouldn’t be too astonished that tonight I came home and found one piece of notebook paper ripped out from one of my endless supply of journals.

It read simply “That’s enough. See you in Topeka.”

Topeka? I couldn’t wrap my simple mind around what the hell that meant. Never been to Topeka. Never openly expressed the desire to travel to such a nothing kind of place. But, I want to go everywhere in this country at least once, so I guess it’s as good as any other place to say “Fuck you.”

Or is this some kind of cryptic message being sent. Go to Topeka the mind says. Maybe you’ll find the answer there. At least it will answer a question. One question. And usually you don’t even get that much.

When we first met, she seemed to share my desire for aimless rambling. Going somewhere just to go there. Not planning out a course or even booking a hotel room. Slowly, the journeys became less frequent and the spontaneity non-existent. But I just took it for what I thought it was, a little bit of complacency. Maybe a little bit of laziness.

In fact, it was both of them, and neither of them. We just stopped paying attention to what we needed from each other. Or maybe we got exactly what we needed, and no longer had to suck from the tit of “us.”

Those first few months were reckless and stupid. We kissed on a random moment after skirting around the issue for too long. We laughed constantly around each other. We did the same things. We talked about the future. We got in our cars and drove, and went places. And didn’t much pay attention to all the places. Instead, paying attention to each other. Well, that’s what I did. I can’t much speak for her point of view, except what I thought was going on.

We had sex. It was good, but it also was strange.

Soon, we fought a lot. I never understood why. I never knew how it started or what would end it. It always did end. And we fell back into each other. Drinking too much. Fucking in bathroom stalls and shitty hotel rooms. Trying a quickie in the living room of my best friend. It didn’t matter. We were in love with each other. And we wanted to suck every last moment of it out.

After a while, the passion was still there, but life interrupted. It has a way of doing that, if you let it. My experience is that if you let it get in there, it will. Like a slow drip of water. Eventually, even that topples a mountain.

Decisions became less about us, and more about I or me or you or him or her. It wasn’t on purpose. And honestly, I think decisions were always attempted -- in the most roundabout ways -- to be for the good of “us.” But there was never a discussion. It’s why the lyrics “who are we kidding? There never was a plan,” resonate with me every time Benjamin belts ‘em out. The first time I heard those words, I thought of her. The years haven’t dulled the feelings. They haven’t made them less important. All the time has done is fade the memory. Like a painting that been on display in a museum for too many years, it gets old, dirty and maybe starts to crack a bit. But underneath, it’s still the Mona Lisa. It’s still a Picasso or a even a Yves Klein.

“You think too much about the past,” every girlfriend before and since has said to me. They’re all right. I know this. But the fact that they say that means they just don’t get it. Or, I’d like to think they don’t get it. Love lasts forever. Every book ever written on the subject says so. Every song does too. Why? Because you wouldn’t write it if you didn’t want it to last. For the message to be there. Always.

Is it wrong to allow a piece of you to still hold on to the past. No matter how cruel that past was to you, or you to it? I believe it’s folly to believe you can let go of it. Completely. Hell, that’s why we have memories, right? To learn from mistakes. To not repeat them. You put your hand on a hot oven once. Not over and over again. You knock a hornets’ nest from a tree but one time. Unless you like being stung.

What the fuck is in Topeka? Neither of us will probably ever know the answer to that.

Maybe she should have written that note. Instead of me. Or maybe I just think too much about her. And me. And what it is we used to be.