They say that denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
I say it's the freight train running through my home office and my email, the one I managed to conveniently forget about Monday while pining wistfully over a white dress sleeve cuff flicked in rush hour traffic -- the train pulling a load of longing for a corporate life past.
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He emailed me.
I haven't heard from him in ten years.
Well, up until an email late spring, sent to my oldest personal email account. It looked like a form message one might send out in bulk, so I drafted a reply and never sent it. That draft is still parked in my email a handful of months later, a leftover wishful thought.
Yesterday there was another email -- Join me in my network, it read.
I ignored it, thinking it was another form missive sent out in bulk.
It dawned on me as I sauteed pork paillards for dinner that I never did look at the network.
Fuck.
He'd left digital fingerprints, actually looked me up, looked at my profile. He looked at me under my real name, under my real life account although the email was sent to a pseudonymous business account I use for consulting.
He's still tall, lean, floppy-haired; his eyes are still greenish-hazel and still crinkle at the corners when something makes him smile. His jaw is still sharp, his chin still blessed with that lickable cleft.
Fuck.
He's still the same smart but easy-going guy who likely shaped the marketing outreach of a popular breakfast food many Americans eat. He's still the same cautious fellow who could persuade a Fortune 100 company to try something utterly new and bleeding-edge.
He still makes my heart flip, my mouth water, my throat clench.
And he still wears those crisp white dress shirts with a silk tie, like the one I saw yesterday during rush hour.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I am crushed on the rails under that freight train named Denial, uncertain how I missed it as it mangled me on Monday.
[Copyright 2011--all rights reserved. | Graphic: ted_major via Flickr]
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