To See You Again

When we were kids, and they called us boys and girls, we felt like we were the ones building the world around us. We used to speak about high school diplomas as a distant task, and we imagined our dreams like they were our present. I casted my life on little of what happened at the present moment, and worked on so much that is still feels like so far away today, but now you have these ambitions, and I am able to be happy for you, as you were for me.

Now we stand here, and all I hear are about are of the places we used to not be able to talk about before. What were dreams, still stand as a sweet kind promise, and between us, with nothing said, we stand in each other’s lives, half at ease, and our different minds leaving home, and setting our dreams high above each other’s heads.

Take it back to when we were thirteen, and my head was already wrapped around a number of different dreams and aspirations. Many of which I could barley hold in my hands at the time, and many of which I am struggling to grasp in my hands today.

I think of the places of somewhere where people are reuniting after a day, or ten years, and we stand somewhere in between our young encounters, and growing up. We meet, and I tell you that my endeavors haven’t changed, and I feel a change in your countenance, but your spirits are held on to so tight, that I couldn’t express any more gratitude for.

We caught up on what we missed out on from each other’s lives. I recognized every part of your face as you spoke; every word, and meaning. I moved on so quickly, and I’m comfortable enough to call my future, home, but if there’s something else I must admit this feels a certain way I cannot specify. For the first time, my past was what felt as new to revisit, but you were one thing I’ve missed; every part of you. It’s interesting that my messages to you still feel the same as my first, and I’ve forgotten about some people over the years, but I sat there, jogging my mind about those like you that I’ve missed.  We spoke, reflecting on our past, because it was what we only knew; about the music I liked back then, the way you used to speak so confidently, only to realize how much time has passed, and really how much has changed, and the time that we knew was now inevitable to face.

I haven’t seen you in a while, a year worth of time, and I could look at that time that we have missed out on, but I think that we were just busy getting older, and perhaps a little bit wiser.

Now I realize that there is a faint breath between us as we speak, and I know it isn’t the gap in time that we have missed from each others lives. I speak like I haven’t thought about you in a long worth of time, but I’ve built a monument for our memories and the friendship we have built.

I was a girl with big bright eyes with a big dreamy head. I can barely remember all of the books I read those years, but I remember our conversations, and the late nights we stayed up laughing. You consoled the happiness in my ambitions in time capsules – you believed in me, and I carried you on my right side like you were all I had left.

I don’t know how many years I expected to lie in between us before we spoke again, but age caught up to us, and I’m afraid you cannot see all the things that are a part of me now. Somewhere in our history, we are now able to reunite with eager “hellos”, and “its so nice to see you”, but it makes “see you soon” so hard again. There’s a gesture in our language, that tells me that it might be a while again, but with hopes that our futures will collide.

–                    Emilyn Nguyen, To See You Again