It’s springtime and Ben is standing in the empty fountain, laughing at the school aged children as they walk by. I sit, watching him and I think to myself, how bizarre it is that he’s here. In this moment, he’s crossing over into my world, into my past, standing in a place that has so much meaning to me. This is where we use to come and sit. This is where we use to talk, mostly about boys but sometimes about our hopes and dreams. The possibilities seemed endless back then, our lives a blank slate. But now, he’s here. Running, laughing, smiling, breathing. So full of life. He’s a part of me and a part of what I had hoped for so many years ago.
There are so many places I love, that I want to share with Ben. I want him to play in the parks I enjoyed as a child. I want him to explore our river valley, touch the earth with his bare hands, smell the damp leaves in the fall. I want him to walk along side me in the neighborhoods that I love. I want him to experience what I felt as a child. But sometimes it feels strange for him to be present somewhere that holds so much meaning to me. It’s almost as if he’s out of place, out of context. Intruding in the life, I had before him. A life, in many ways, separate from the one I live in now. As much as I love him, I want there to be pieces of me that aren’t about him.
The truth is, when Ben came along he turned my world inside out and upside down. The most beautiful feeling, a love like no other. And a year and a half later, I’m still sifting through the life I lived before, trying to piece it together with the reality I live in now. He’s the center of my universe, the bridge between my past and present, running around in my memories. A bizarre feeling at times...
