Wedding Bells

The other day I think I heard my wedding song. My body reacted before I could fully concentrate on the words and I swear my heart skipped a beat. In the past I joked with my cousin that I'd more than likely walk down the aisle to mint condition's "U send me swingin". As soon as I heard this song play, I knew the previous one I talked about jokingly no longer could suffice. Subconsciously, I had been playing this song since I was little and in my heart I felt like just maybe my future husband was too. I've never really played instruments, but when I was younger I would go into the garage of my childhood home and play the melody of a similar tune on the piano. The melody is so soft yet majestic and as soon as it played from my laptop recently, I couldn't stop the tears from streaming down my face as I remembered the many days I'd hide away in the garage as a girl playing a familiar tune.

Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of the day I'd get married. I can remember drawing my wedding dress in class with my sweetheart cut strapless gown. In the back it had a dip right before it flowed into a big traditional train. As I got older I began to crave simplicity, but more than that after all I'd lost I simply wanted consistency. When I watched the wedding episode of The Wonder Years, I imagined the day when I'd be in a simple bohemian style gown with an intimate ceremony. Instead of a backyard like the wedding episode being my destination of choice, I wanted Hawaii. Ever since my mom took me in the 9th grade I craved the day when I could go back. Maybe that's why that was all I could think about as I was met with more loss this year. Hawaii has always been my greatest escape and my fondest memory of peace. Hawaii took me back to how I used to feel during the long rides I'd take with my daddy in his bright blue pick up truck as a young girl. It was more of a feeling than a specific memory and I almost felt like I'd dreamed it until I took a similar ride with a friend who was the same sign as my father. The comfort and familiarity reminded me of my childhood car rides with Larry McDowell.

My dream school was the University of Hawaii Manoa. I printed out the application looking at it daily, but sadly enough I never applied. I convinced myself that I wanted Emerson or NYU, but after getting turned down from Emerson I couldn't bare the disappointment of not going to Hawaii or New York so the applications sat on my dresser. I settled for Cal State Northridge because it was far from the new home that I acquired the summer before 11th grade. It was far enough that I'd never want to commute home, but safe enough that it was not out of state or too unknown. I convinced myself that I liked the way they had my Journalism Major as "Magazine Journalism". Maybe it was fate that I never applied to my real dream schools because if I had've gone away then I might've never laid eyes on him.

He was everything I wanted and it scared me. Two years prior I had lost my mother and two months prior I had lost the majority of vision in my left eye due to stress. I had all the symptoms of a tumor, but doctors found none. There was so much pressure build up that it began pressing against my octave nerve causing me to lose majority of vision in my left eye. The week of graduation I began getting anxiety at the thought of my parents not being alive to see me walk the stage. I didn't want graduation pictures and declined all school graduation packages. I asked if I could just stay home opting to receive my diploma in the mail, but my best friend's step mom insisted that I walked the stage. On grad night I was miserable with the worst migraine of my life and as fun as the night started, I ended it asleep on a bench outside of one of the party stations. A week later I woke up with blurred vision in my left eye.

Freshman year of college was fun, but unlike all my friends there was no fun random hook ups or romance for me. Most times my "friends" would ditch me to hang out with their boyfriends. I had an introduction to African American culture class. It reminded me of everything I thought college would be and I made sure I was always on time because I was intrigued by the discussions we'd have.

He was always the first one to speak in class and I was mesmerized by his intellect. I rarely spoke up in this particular class because I was always nervous that I'd say the wrong thing or stutter if I saw him looking in my direction. My friend Natanya would always joke about my crush  knowing my mild obsession with Common because they slightly favored. I paid her no mind and went about my days not thinking he would ever notice me.

I don't know how it happened, but he began noticing me. There was this day that I could vividly remember when a small group of people from our class stood outside of the Pan African Studies building making jokes and conversing. This was my first time interacting with him outside of class and I couldn't help, but notice how goofy he was. He began reciting poetry from a book he was carrying around and I could not help, but feel uncomfortable as he looked me dead in my eyes as the words began flowing from his lips. It made me feel giddy and he began playing it off by going back to conversing with everyone.

It was finals week and I had a group study session. To my luck he was there and he began noticing my new tattoo on my calf. He made a subtle joke about me getting a tattoo of his name as he touched the fresh ink. I thought it was cute that he was 4 years older than me and had no ink on his skin. I admired that about him as my ink was my pain reliever and my subtle way of rebelling. I don't know if you've ever seen a brown skinned girl turn bright red, but it's quite comical. After the study session we all exchanged numbers and I smiled at the thought of finally having his contact info.

A few days later as I made my way out of our campus library, I came into contact with him once again. He gently grabbed my arm as I said a quick hello just as I was about to rush off to my dorm room. He asked me if I wanted to study with him and as innocent of a gesture as it was, I felt my palms get sweaty as I thought of an excuse to cut him loose. My excuses poured out my mouth like hot lava and his persistence while gently holding on to my arm wasn't easing up. He made me so nervous and I made up a million reasons in my head as to why I no longer liked him. I couldn't even lie to myself and as he finally let go of my arm, I subconsciously kicked myself repeatedly on my way to my dorm for being so shy.

The last attempt to hang with me outside of class was when I received a text about a party from him. The party was in a near by apartment not far from campus housing and I frantically texted all my "friends" asking if they would come with me. Unsurprisingly they all had plans with their boyfriends and told me to put on my big girl panties so I could go alone. My nerves got the best of me and the closer it got to the time of the party, I knew that I wasn't bold enough to go alone. I texted him later letting him know I couldn't make it.

Fast forward nearly seven years later and his face pops up on my Facebook timeline. I didn't think anything of it until I went to his page and started looking at his pictures remembering how much I liked him my freshman year of college. I noticed that their were no pictures of a girlfriend or wife on his page. After nearly seven years, I just knew that somebody would've been the mother of his kids or at least his wife by now. I decided to investigate and I told myself if I find out he was not married in addition to not having any kids, I would shoot my shot. During my investigation my conversation with him started innocent and as light as a simple "Hey, how have you been?" As I came across a recent tweet confirming that he was in fact not married and did not have any children, I gathered the nerve to shoot my shot.

To my dismay, after out brief friendly conversation he didn't reply to my last message. I could feel the steam coming from my face as I nervously wrote my very transparent message confessing about how much I liked him in the past and would like to get to know him better if he wasn't seeing anyone. The longer my message went with unanswered, the more nervous I became and in a split second I went from timid to way too bold as I noticed he saw my message while being currently online. I convinced myself he was going to be mine so I hit him with a "Oh so you trying to play hard to get? See you soon ;) lol ".

To my surprise, he finally writes back telling me he was seeing someone now and thanking me for my honesty because that takes "courage"- his words not mine. He then proceeds to ask me about the book I'd written which I doubt he was even remotely interested in seeing as though I posted several things about it which he never liked or commented on. I laughed out loud and smirked to myself seeing his game. If a man is serious about someone they don't broadcast how their not married or don't have kids. That post was definitely click bate for anyone who secretly admired him and I noticed a few tweets about him saying he could wait for a person he met over 6 years ago. I laughed at that being around the time that I had met him, but I shrugged if off down playing the fact that there was a possibility he could've been talking about me. I proceeded to apologize if I came off too straight forward, but secretly I wasn't that sorry because at least he knew that I liked him back when we were in college.

As funny as it sounds, I feel like he's going to be my husband one day. I'll go about my business and not pay him any mind until the universe works it out in my favor. Even if I'm wrong, it makes me smile to imagine that I finally got the dream guy after never seriously dating my entire life. I find it funny how lately I've been seeing so many wedding rings on people who are not married. It feels like my eyes are playing tricks on me because when I look again the rings disappear. Maybe everything is mere coincidence including some of what I did not include in this post, but the fact remains that I'll never forget the way I felt as I heard Brian McKnight's "Every time you go away".