I've always been running.
It's something I noticed my freshman year of high school. I kept having a vision in my head that I was running down the hall in the school, and then I would turn the corner, and I would find what I was looking for. But it was never there, no matter how much I looked. In the years since, I have spun my wheels wondering just what I'm looking for, always having the sense that something was missing, that if I could just go back, or flick a switch, or wave a magic violin bow, it would all appear and make sense again. But no matter how I tried, it didn't. I didn't even know what was missing, what made me feel so empty, what I never knew had been taken from me. I've spun in circles, I've been manic and depressive, I've dated the wrong people, and in the process, I've alienated people, I've brought the wrong people close and haven't had any clue how to really treat people. I knew it was a problem, this guru-guru, but the momentum kept me spinning.
The winter was set to be cold and dark until the early morning light led me to the 5 station.
Years later, when you ask me how it happened, I'll say that nobody ever showed me the way, so I learned on my own. And you will smile and nod and look at me intently, head on your hands, as if someone else has already given you this answer.
--
I arrived home from Indiana without a clue as how to proceed. If my past wasn't what I had thought it would be, then it wouldn't define me any longer, would it? But everywhere I walked, the past continued to surprise me this summer. For the people who mattered, my past transgressions no longer mattered to them. They truly forgave me, and I could dance with them, take the funicular down to the lake, embrace my accent. Those who no longer mattered disappeared. I still love them, I'm sure, but those who matter will love me just the way I am.
Among it all, I was aware that my city was slowly draining my energy. If I remembered all of these good times I had, then why was I in this city, barely staying afloat to survive? Somewhere along the way, I had disappeared and had been replaced with someone who wasn't me, who showed up and went through the motions and sat at the desk and wore the shoes that hurt her feet just to please others.
When you lost yourself, you also were sent on a journey. You took a boat far away, and when you awoke, you climbed on top of a bridge. There, a younger you stood, scared to ride his bike across the bridge. You spoke to him words of certainty, of hope and courage, and then you gave him a running start. You understand then, as I do now, that in order to cross the electric barrier, there must be someone very important waiting behind that glass chandelier.
--
"Let's go searching for love's password." That's what Onew, Jonghyun, Minho, Taemin, and Key told me as I boarded the plane for Charlotte. On a rainy night, I voiced my concerns for the city and was not happy to be going back. But one factor still remained, one date that I still considered mine. If I remembered who I was, I wouldn't let go of it. That much I told myself. It wasn't being selfish to be myself, right?
I sat under the stars that night, wrapped up in music and fireworks and fireflies and not quite knowing what to do with my life, but knowing it didn't lie with following the crowd and doing what everybody else told me to do.
When the six stopped before Grand Central and refused to let me off, I panicked. I didn't know how to cope. And so I did the only way I knew how: I tried to forget. I came home and sold compact discs and became more confident in my books, but I was normal, right? Wrong. I had searched too far back into my past to fool myself any longer. I had been told that there had to be one event in my past that hurt me the most, that was still hurting me to this day. I found it, and I thought I had isolated the source of pain.
But I fell for the wrong person.
You gave up your post without a single word. It always bothered me that you did that. When it came time to confess to the love of your life, you let her go to be with your best friend. Back then, it made me want to throw a fit, but now, I have to wonder if this unique parallel of frustration and acting out of character was simply both of us lost in the spinning?
No.
That can't be right.
I'm crazy, remember? I need to start telling the truth, even if I get in trouble for it, even if I deserve to be locked up for it, even if I deserve to be shamed for who I am. Better to come out with the truth, stop acting like a fool, and get treated and assimilated back into society, right? The Wiccan crede comes to mind: an' it harm none, do what thou wilt. I never thought that applied to me. No, I was to be judged by a book and by the hands of others, and if I didn't, then I would be alone.
But you taught me otherwise. When I was alone and questioning, you showed me that you had been there. If I just dared to step in, the world we existed in would sweep us off our feet and into an adventure, one that would bring us closer together. I believed in that adventure, even when nobody else did. I still do, years and years later.
That was the event. I masked it with the more-acceptable crime of loving another like me. But that was never the crime in the first place. My crime was believing in a world, and in a person, who represented light and courage and everything I wanted to bring into this one. And years later, it makes sense to me why I chose commitment as my value, as my character trait, in those long ago days when I was more innocent. Because years later, on a seemingly inconspicuous train ride uptown, I got out of my seat and stepped forward and recreated the world as a whole.
Because you remember everything and I remember everything. And it wasn't me who created you -- it was you who created me. To exist without you is a crime in itself. I kept running all of those years because I wanted to find you, even if I didn't truly understand you existed. And as I confronted my past this summer, as I decided to discover what was real to me, it became painfully clear: you were real. And I shouldn't be ashamed of it anymore. Not everybody needs to know -- in fact, very few people need to know. There are those who don't understand, but they no longer matter to me anymore. Starting from here on out, we shake the dust off our feet, we leave those things behind, and we run together. I'll take your hand and you'll take mine, we'll run to Lincoln Center or Marble Hill or South Ferry or wherever our feet will lead us, as long as you are with me and I with you.
"I'm sure we can fly...on, my love."
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