Peace, love, coffee...

I'm sitting at San Fransisco Coffee in Atlanta feeling so in love. The sun is out and the air surrounding the place smells of freshly brewed caffinated deliciousness mixed with a faint sugary sweetness of baked things. I can't get enough. I don't ever want to exhale. I wish I could bottle up smells and keep them with me always. I would like a bottle of Rob, a bottle of this place, a bottle of my parents, a bottle of cookies, the list is endless...
It kills me I can't fully describe all the things that go through my mind when I'm here in Atlanta. I'm both anxious and calm. I'm everywhere and nowhere. I relive all sorts of memories and create new ones. I feel physically close to Rob when I'm here. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I'm surrounded by everything that reminds me of things we did. It hurts in ways I can't describe. I have visuals of places we went to together in Atlanta unlike Chicago. I go to these places and feel closer to him.
Currently I'm sitting at a table we shared one Sunday morning before heading to work. I remember him ordering a soy caramel latte and doing an impression of a southern Baptist preacher, making me laugh so hard I think I almost fell off my chair. I can still hear the tone of his voice now and it makes me smile. When I get like this I want these feelings to last forever. I want to sink into them, hang on to them, and never let them go. I freak out because I know they pass. They move in and out of me like air through my lungs.
Nineties music is playing taking me on all sorts of journeys. It moves from the Counting Crows to the Cranberries. Most of it isn't anything I'd rush home to download but is special enough to float through, to allow myself to drift out to the sea of past moments and live them again. From a church youth retreat when I was 12, to the fall of my freshman year of high school to sitting in the passenger seat of Nathan's Celica on a date, I am reminded that all this music used to be part of "now". It's currently in the past which feels weird that so much time as gone by. Life is still moving and this music is a gentle reminder of that.
I guess while I'm bottling up smells, I'd like to bottle up memories and feelings to keep with me also. My writing doesn't do justice to what's in my head. I feel so completely wide open today. I love being this way. I want to save it and pull out on a bad day to remind myself how much happiness is out there to have and experience. I'd really like to share all of this with someone, anyone really, but I'm trying to keep it with me, hold it, wait for an available, safe, healthy person to open myself up to. I'd like to stop hurting myself, stop getting attached to people who aren't actually there and delve into something real. I think... It's hard to be healthy though when all I've done is hurt myself in one way or another.
After a while I leave and go see Shannon. We're going to have lunch at Alon's Bakery. While driving down North Highland, I pass LaRaine's bridal store. Hearts are on the window and I smile thinking of Rob and him sending them. I remember the Saturday before Easter Sunday, we were walking back to my place from dinner and he nodded in the direction of the store saying we should get me a dress from there. I joked with him saying it was awfully fancy for an Easter dress...
I catch a glimpse of my little Celica parked where I usually kept it at Kat and Gordon's and feel my smile broaden. I am so full of giddyness that it's almost like he's still alive...
It's so good to see Shannon. I talk her face off and wish I could pack her up with me. After lunch I drive over to Kat and Gordon's and change clothes. I run through Freedom Park and into Candler Park. It's perfect outside and I'm elated running through my favorite places. While running down McClendon Ave I feel connected to Rob and everything around me in a way I can't describe. It's like he's here inside me, joining me on my run. My iPOD is clicked into "Shuffle" mode and "Addicted" comes on. I "hear" the words "I love you" in my head. "I love you too." I say back smiling to myself. "I miss you." I "hear" the voice tell me. "I miss you too." I tell it.
I realize this could put me in the category of schizophrenics with all this in my head but there isn't a doubt in my mind that it's real. I remember a few weeks after Rob died, a coworker of mine explained that he'll "talk" to me. She's had more experience with death than I care to imagine so I paid a lot of attention to that and a lot of attention to the little things that have popped up in my path, from a South Carolina license plate to the words "I love you' somewhere to the kind words spoken from a friend.
I am still confused though and still second guessing myself. I have almost 200 songs on my little iPOD and "Addicted" just happened to start playing? At the same spot almost on the street that it played back in October when I was driving and heard it? I wish to myself that my head isn't screwing with me, that this is real and I'm not making it up. Seconds later, while still running, I look up and see a silver car with a South Carolina license plate on the back of it. I'm beaming feeling a calm sensation take over my body. My friend Derek told me that there are all sorts of things out there, we just have to be open to them. This is confusing to me. How come some people are and some aren't? I've felt that Rob never fully left me. I miss him terribly but don't feel abandoned. There's been a sort of calm that's floated around with me since. Whether or not I choose to tap into it is my own choice. Sometimes I walk away from it for a little bit, but always return.
I finish my run and meet Kat at their place when she gets done with work. We walk up the street to Harry and Sons for sushi. We talk nonstop about the events of the past month. I miss her terribly. Even sitting across from her, knowing I have to go back soon, I miss her and want to keep her with me always.
I leave shortly after dinner, wanting to be back at mom and dad's at a decent hour. I climb into dad's truck, and head to the interstate. I feel completely free. I don't live in Atlanta anymore and can come and go as I please, enjoying all the good stuff and leaving before losing my mind. Currently I'm not in Chicago with all it's challenges of the everyday life I've settled into. I'm on this long stretch of interstate with such a sense of peace that I never ever want to leave.
An upbeat song I've heard on occasion starts playing. I'm not sure who sings it but the chorus says "I love you" several times. How do I describe this? I am lit from within. I'm smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. This is the closest I've come to feeling physically with Rob since he died. It's like being injected with a powerful dose of the most intense love you could ever know.
My description of this pales when comparing it to what's happening. I've never had to find words to match a feeling like this before. There is no sadness, no wishing he were next to me or wishing I could share this with him because he's here, All I have is right now. Nothing else exists. It's all I could ever want. If I try to wrap my mind around it, it'll go away. I just have to feel it and hope that I can retain it. It's so strong and so lucid that I crave it, even while experiencing it. It's nothing I've ever felt before.
The song ends and I have to return to Earth. I'm so happy to feel this...to somehow open up to it. I want to be more open to it but don't know how yet. I try to just take everything as it comes and feel privileged that I can experience the short moments like this that I do.
Home. Mom and I stay up talking about relationships and marriage. I don't want to think about any of it. All my interactions with the opposite sex have had an underlying theme of "are you the one?" Maybe it's a human nature thing. Maybe it's a reflection of my southern upbringing. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm tired of that. I want to experience people as they are without worrying about anything else. I want to let go and be happy in any given moment no matter who I'm with or not with. This is easier said than done being I've lived my adult life seven steps ahead instead of in whatever moment I find myself in.
The subject of Rob comes up. Mom says "We don't really know what would have happened with you two if he lived. You were dead set on moving to Chicago."
A burst of anger makes my blood boil. I try to remain calm and remember that I never shared my feelings or intuitions with her. Or anyone really for that matter. When I decided to move to Chicago (before meeting Rob) I somehow "knew" that I would spend through my savings, get into a car accident and fall in love but it wouldn't last. (At least, not in the way I had imagined or wanted it to.) At the time that I had these feelings, I had no savings, hadn't been on a date in God knows how long and the accident? Well.. I did live in Atlanta where anything can happen so that one I wasn't too apprehensive about.
Sure enough, I managed to save up some money, fall in love, get into an accident, lose that love and spend through what I saved while taking time off from work to grieve and write.
I shared all of this with mom. I don't know if she believes me or not. I guess it doesn't matter. I know what I felt. I don't know if she has feelings like this. This is part of why I can second guess what's in my head because I feel like the two people who brought me into this world can't totally relate to what I'm talking about and it makes me feel isolated and alone in a way. I do look for understanding elsewhere and am always happy when I get it, it's just that I crave closeness with my parents. I must admit it's hard imagining them as human beings with their own set of thoughts and life experiences. It's hard to be gentle and understanding when I want something so badly that I can't totally explain it to ask for it I just know it's there and I need it from them. I wish to know them in other ways but have such an incredibly difficult time getting to a vulnerable enough place to ask anything or tell anything. It's much easier to sit in the child role I've been in my entire life...