Thursday, October 23, 2008

Yellow Brick Memory Lane


You know how some days just start off with a certain kind of mood? Not yours, but the day's. It's almost as if it is traveling along it's own course and you're just along for the ride, (or being drug as the case may be.)

I set myself up to have a good day today. I went to bed early, woke up on time, had a yummy breakfast and the ever-important jumbo coffee. It's the chilliest day of the season so I put on my beloved, cropped leather jacket, unzipped the right-side pocket and felt something against my fingertips. Curious as to what had gone un-missed for the last few seasons I pull out a ticket stub. Unfolding it, my heart stopped.

(Everyone here knows my romantic situation but in the name of journalistic integrity, I have decided to refer to him as Mr. M.) Mr. M is a New Yorker and on my very first trip out to see him, he surprised me with tickets to see Wicked on Broadway. After the show I had placed that stub in my jacket pocket with thoughts, I'm sure, to place it in a home much more worthy of its value upon my return. I never did. And so there it lived only to resurface eight months later and inflict wicked heartache. Touche.

My question to you is this, do you believe in signs? Looking for signs is often a trait prescribed to by religious zealots or new agey elemental types. I like to think of myself as a very logical person with bouts of cynicism and sarcasm thrown in for good measure. So is it possible that the stub was a coincidence? Sure. But why when, for the first day in a while, did I wake up with dry eyes and a clear head only to stumble on that little bomb in my pocket?

Are little occurrences only signs if we give them that power? Are we searching so desperately for something outside ourselves to tell us what we already know? And if it hadn't been the stub, would have just been something else...an online horoscope or Pei Wei fortune cookie, perhaps?

When my breathing returned to normal I folded my scrap of memory shrapnel and instead of returning it to my right jacket pocket, I unzipped my left and shoved it in. The truth is that Mr. M is never far from my thoughts. He will always be with me to one degree or another. The ticket stub's sign status is debatable but I get to chose what to do with it from here. In one pocket is my past and the other is my future. They're simply two parts of the buttery-soft, luxurious leather jacket of life.

1 comment:

MrsCNLee said...

ouch! damn.
i think you can view the ticket as a symbol of the relationship, since he's now decided to start calling again. and i think it's fitting that for now the ticket is shoved into the other pocket, but still in your jacket and on your person. and i expect you'll carry it around in the jacket with you for a while longer, mulling over the situation until you're just sick of even thinking about it anymore. then you'll put it away in a scrapbook somewhere and move on with empty pockets waiting to be filled with momentos of life's next great adventure.