The Friday Confessional : Mo Anam Cara

Last week, I wrote Seeds of Affection, confessing the almost sordid, but sweet details of Xan and my secret burgeoning relationship.

We left off with Xan’s admission of when he recognize his love for me.  Our moment was described in this:

Chronos smiled, freezing time for us, and only us.  The night stood still, permitting us to slip between the cracks of space and time.  We defied the continuum without breaking our bonds.  And for those moments, we were more than just two solitary entities inhabiting the same space.  We were the space; we were each others’ thoughts, voices, and breaths.

Something sparked that evening while we were painting.  I doubt me being in my underwear had much to do with it.  Art is an intimate thing, especially painting.  There is a lot of physical contact and what remains is a representation of the emotion in the area.  What was left was permanent.  We were oblivious to this, but it certainly wasn’t lost on his girlfriend.

Neither of us could understand why she was so upset.

Familiar places, familiar faces, we once again found ourselves on our eternal carousel, orbiting one another but never to meet in the middle.  Gravitation pull kept us circling, leaving others to be our asteroids consistently knocking us off course.  Nearly two years elapsed before our irregular orbits had crossed paths once more.  But other planets were aligning, creating a universal, cataclysmic event, speeding up motion and time.

Years passed, and we remained friends.  There was a barrier of friends and lovers that stood between us, wiser and more perceptive.  We had something, a certain something that can only be found between two people who were mean to be together.  But, neither of us knew it.  Individually, we had feelings for each other, but nothing that existed in the forefront of our minds.  And both of us believed that the other would be unlikely to give the other a sideways glance in any life.

Regardless, we still gravitated toward each other.  Through falling outs, jealous lovers severing our ties, and simply life leaving us in vague passing, we still managed to come back together.

The Eve of Omega and Alpha culminated at the end of a mighty crescendo.  All in one space and time resided unrealized past, present, and future respectively as if the freshly laundered fabric of time had been folded, once over, twice over, then again.  I was frozen, pondering the possibilities, and still too nearsighted to distinguish.  My crossroads were much fuzzier and perilous than I had realized and my choices too weighted and narrow.  Yet, he stood further down the path, silently beckoning me once again, always too far ahead like a time traveler.  And for once brief moment, I caught his greyish outline in the distance, down the overgrown path.  However, it wasn’t enough to detract from the bright signs, falsely guiding me down yet another treacherous path.

Confession #4:  At one point, I had recognized that I had affections for Xan.  This was months after we had started our pseudo dating.  I had written in my journal, “What is the difference between a best friend and a lover?”  Xan was my best friend.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again and again.  Xan had seen me at my very best, attending my concerts, screaming and smiling while riding shopping carts down busy city streets.  He had also witnessed my very darkest moments, all of the late night sobbing, the rages, vicious attacks and desperate, pathetic living conditions with alcoholism.  Xan knew me better than anyone in this world.  We shared more than two friends should probably have shared.

The spring air was crisp, and the beauty exuded more so than ever before.  We spoke, old moths to the flame, drawn in, never missing a beat to the rhythm of the familiar drum.  Perhaps we marked time to it, never straying far enough for life in all of it’s obstructive noise obscure it’s particular pulse.  Our time was infinite.  We walked the earth eternally, as long as the sky was blanketed in the celestial beings that kissed the sky.  Even with every step I took, I felt my chains to the other becoming more cumbersome, the burden unbearable.  I trudged on.

Xan and I spent a great deal of time on my balcony.  We were forced out there, because my ex was occupying the singular room we were living out of, while playing World of Warcraft.  It is not as if we were typically speaking words that shouldn’t have been overheard.  It was just incredibly difficult to have a deep conversation with blaring metal music and Avi’s incessant, nonsensical babble.

Drunk words are sober thoughts.  Confessions poured from my soul through my mouth faster than a river through the universe, traveling at the speed of light.  I was the sinner and he was my savior, hearing every gruesome detail, redeeming me with stroking words, caressing my frail soul.  The picture was black, the sound garbled like in a damaged film reel.  The scene continued regardless; the show must go on !

Confession #5:  I kissed Xan before we were officially together.  In fact, I didn’t remember it until after we were officially together.  Xan told me about how I had confessed my love for him while he dragged my limp, floppy body home from the bar one warm Saturday night.  That was the same Saturday night that I took him to the trestle.

Come with me.

Such a simple phrase struck a nerve and coursed my stagnant lifesblood through my icy veins.

The “come with me” phrase was in reference to his college choice.  He was finally ready to finish his degree, and was accepted into Tulane.  I was distraught at the idea of him leaving.  He put his hand on my knee and looked deep into my eyes.  He said, “Come with me.”  The way he said it was like, “Come with me, away from this place, away from this hell you’re in.”  It was like he wanted to rescue me.  It was the first time that anyone had said anything like that.  He cared for me so much that he couldn’t stand to leave me behind.

That boy loves you more than you’ll ever know.

First synapses firing, connecting, the stirrings of conscious realization.  The Alpha and Omega, overlapping in folds of time.  The mirage eroded before me, and the poisonous cloud released.

For the first time in centuries, we were standing face to face within the labyrinth.  Side by side, we made our way through its dark, narrow walkways.  Our flames licked each other eagerly, separate for the very last instant of eternity.  No walls remained, only the flesh and air between us.

“That boy loves you more than you’ll ever know,” was spoken by my own father, one hot summer night while we all drank together on the porch.  Xan had left to grab us all some more drinks, and my father told me that.  My father, the man who approved of absolutely nothing I had ever done or ever planned to do.  I could do no right in his eyes.  But, he seemed to see something I didn’t.

Confession #6:  That is among the dozens of reasons I married Xan.  Parental approval was more than through the roof.  I asked my mother how she would feel about our marriage, and she was thrilled.  She put out the engagement announcement in the paper the very next week.

In the dead of night, so silent the rain did not dare make a patter in this moment, he grasped my arm firmly and wrapped himself around me.  Underneath the long reach of the trees branches above, time slowed to accent the moment, and brand it in heart and memory for lifetimes to come.

I have always loved you.

He breathed into me, a life and fire to awaken mine.  Our lips touched, melting into one another.  Reunited, intertwined, conjoined at the purest moment of our final reunion. My being shot out so quickly reality could not keep pace.  Time and space bent for us, allowing this moment to live in all of our eternities.

I, as well.  I have always loved you.  

It echoed louder than a chorus of angels, spreading throughout all the worlds to be recognized for the cosmic event it was.  Twin souls, united, now indiscernible from one another.  Two halves of the whole conjoined, intertwining with each passage, every last exchange.  Our flames united into the blazing inferno, lighting up the whole world around us.  He gazed into me as I gazed into him.  And in that very second, we fell into one another, freed from the labyrinth.  Only the world, our beautiful, majestic world, with the vast fields yielding those just emerging seedlings, existed among us.

Mo Anam Cara. It was in that moment that I knew in my heart and soul that I had found My Soul Friend, the English literal translation.

Final Confession:  There is a concept beyond all descriptions of any kind of intense love that exists.  It’s a love that transcends our physical existence in any time or dimensions.  It exists everywhere, in all space, and in all time, defying the laws of nature.  That is how I feel about Xan.  And secretly, I think it’s the way I’ve always felt.