Writes...Brian In Real Life...III"

"it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that i really only write about me and the things that i'm going through. i mean, like the situations in my posts are either things i've experienced personally or my perspective on what did, may or could have happened in those situations. i guess my point is, to read my blog posts is to know who i am and what i'm about as a person. what i write is insight into the real "brian wilson", based on the daily events of my life. for those who are interested, it's brian in real life...

and in real life my name is brian wilson, today is november 16, 2010 and i am dying. don't know when but i'm guessing it'll be sooner than i'll want. so being of a relatively sound mind and a relatively less sound body i've decided to write these words, as these may be the last words anyone will ever read penned by my own hand. please don't take those first three lines the wrong way, it's not like this is a suicide note. not at all. if you know me you wouldn't even consider thinking i'd do something like that. but then again who really knows me? wait, i already asked that in a previous post so let me repeat myself, this isn't a suicide note. i write about my death because it's inevitable and since there's nothing i can do about it, why cry, bitch or moan over something i have no control of. i will die someday so i don't have any qualms about it. think of this thought as it for what it is intended to be; my own realization that the grains of sand in the hourglass of time that is life are slowly passing from one end to the other and that there are things that need to be said or known before my time is up and i expire from this world. i don't want people wondering about who i was and what i stood for after i'm gone and can't explain or defend myself. this is an attempt at a proactive approach to quell the inevitable questions that will come with my eventual death, the who's and the why's specifically. though honestly, when i'm dead i'll probably care about what other people think of me about as much as i care now. and considering i'll have passed on then that should tell you something. but i don't want to leave any secret confessions i was too afraid to reveal; behind to be discovered in letters i was too afraid to send. so i write this now...

"i watched them all, each with their own personal perceptions of me. every man, every woman, each with their own stories and thoughts and experiences we had once shared, until i saw her. her presence seemingly like everyone else's, merely a formality yet so much more. her hands told the story of how she felt. they trembled and shook with an intensity that surprised me. i knew that we shared a connection unlike any other i had had with another person. but i never imagined that my death would have affected her so much. in life i had always tried to think of myself as a little insignificant and at my passing people would spend a day or two reflecting on their experiences with me and then resume their lives as if i never existed. but the scene before me had shattered my thinking. her tears were so genuine, they ached of sadness. her eyes screamed of desperation for the closeness we once had. i could actually feel the pain in her heart."

everyone always wants the truth from me as if i'm not a truthful person. but not sharing what you're thinking isn't being untruthful, it's just not sharing. "do these jeans make my ass look fat?" "uhh, is your ass fat when you take those jeans off?" what is the right answer to that? 'cause i'm pretty sure "if you gotta ask, wear something else" or "maybe if you started jogging..." aren't the right answers. and i know "are you trying to put your fat ass in those jeans?" would definitely lead to a d.v. call to the police so the right answer must be she doesn't ask you lose-lose questions like that. but i digress, the objective of this thought is disclosure and the truth is i never had any thoughts on wanting material things for myself when i was a kid. never had any thoughts on what i wanted to do when i grew up or where i wanted to be. i do remember liking certain things. i liked ferraris 'cause "magnum" had one (a 308 gts), and armani 'cause it conjured fantasies of me being "james bond" in my head but never really had the desire for either, solo l'amore per l'italiano. non ho mai veramente voluto cose che si acquistano. and it's a good thing too because right now i can't afford anything. i never thought about my future or who or what would be in it. the only thoughts i remember having were "tomorrow's another day, survive until then" and "i'm lonely". and nothing changed, i still don't know what's in store for me in this life and i still have those thoughts...survival and loneliness.

"there was something in the way her fingers touched my face. light and feathery, the way a woman touches her lover's face while they share a passionate moment. her movement, slow and deliberate, as her hands gently left my face and clasped my own. and at that moment, everyone else faded away and only we remained...."

yet in the midst of all this uncertainty, despite me not knowing what tomorrow holds for me, i've never lost my propensity to love. and knowing that i have loved and still love sustains me...

"i loved her. for the way she made me feel and how she made me want to live. in that she taught me to see the beauty in things that before had been so insignificant to me. she showed me that there were so many exquisite sights in front of me that i had been taking for granted. i loved her for all these things...i loved her."

i don't want to make the call even though i really want to talk to her. to fulfill its true purpose would be to release emotions that i question sharing again. if i let them go would they be reciprocated? is it in me to deal the reality that they won't be? i don't know but i can't sit here wondering what she's feeling anymore. once upon a time we'd made it known that we loved one another. i have to know if the love she once professed for me has diminished since the last time those words fell from her lips? i pick up my phone and press and hold the 8 button, we hardly talk at all these days but i know in my heart she'll always be worthy of a speed dial preset. and there is comfort in knowing that despite things not being what they were or what we may have wanted them to be, the connection we've always shared is merely a phone call away. bbbrr-iiing...bbbrr-iiing. bbbrr-iiing..."b?", she answers and i can tell she's a little surprised to hear from me. not "bad" surprised, more like "it's been a long time" surprised. it has been a long time since we last spoke so i understand her amazement at hearing from me out of the blue. i ask her how she is, in my mind still debating whether or not to go through with telling her why i am really calling. she tells me she's fine and that the kids are good. things are going well for them all. i'm happy for her because her situation's better than it was when we wanted each other, but only as happy as one can be for someone who sounds like they're happy without you. she asks me how i am and i hesitate, not because i don't know what to tell her but because i don't know if telling her the truth would change anything between us. "i...ummm...you know...ummm..." is all i can get out before she asks about the family. "they're good. i asked "heavy" what they are doing in school and he said, 'nuthin''. i thought that was funny." she laughs, saying she could see me at his age saying the same thing. and i laugh because i'm pretty sure i did say the same thing when i was his age...

i have loved and still love...

our talk continues but i'm avoiding the thing i really need to be saying and i can sense that she senses i'm holding something back. she knows me, probably better than anyone else and she knows that i'm not really a "how's the weather?" kind of conversationalist, yet i've probably asked her if it's snowed there three or four times by now. i want to tell her how i can't go a day without thinking about past conversations where we talked about our future together as a family and the life we were going to have. i want to tell her that i'm sorry for the way things turned out between us and how i blame myself for her not being with me today. but words fail the wordsmith. she asks me if i'm ok and i babble incoherently. "i...ummm...i..." and i stop to take a deep breath. "i never stopped loving you", somehow i manage to relay a lifetime's worth of feelings in five simple words. my eyes begin to water, to finally hear the things i hold on to in my heart audibly proves overwhelming, far too powerful for someone who is used to keeping those kinds of emotions in check and filtered through his own romantic writings. an overload of sentiment that was too much, too fast. the tears run down my face as i wait for her to say something, anything, that reassures me that opening my heart to her wasn't a mistake but she doesn't speak. seconds seem like minutes or hours or days. i call out to her but there's only more silence, then the click of a disconnection...

"a single teardrop fell from her eye to my face and she quickly wiped away the rest before they fell too. gathering herself, she made her way towards the exit. she wasn't staying for the service. she was a strong woman but even her strength had limits; and keeping her composure during my funeral would've been more than a test of that strength. it would have been a herculean task and it wasn't in her to even attempt it. i'd been her soulmate, though we'd only spoken the word. her heart, though she never told me. we loved with a love that was more than love...because that love transcended our own fallibilities; like in not seeing we were meant for one another before it was too late. the tear she left on my cheek, proof of that."

michelangelo said, "death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven". well i'm a good man and time only guarantees me one of those wings. and since nothing flies with only one wing, telling you how i feel in my writing is my effort to gain the other. i'll ascend one day because of what we've been and what we've meant to one another. because we never lost what we felt when we were together; when we had our heads in the clouds but our feet on the ground."