No. 4

Hello, again. 
The fourth question has my heart fluttering.

[No. 4]

DO YOU MISS ME? I MISS YOU. 

I like this question. The ease is touching. I started this piece months ago and never would have then imagined the way it would touch my heart when I re-focused to edit it just days after amicably parting ways with my partner of nearly two years. Part of the beauty of writing is that we often script notes to our future selves, whether intentionally or not. Re-reading a diary of any kind can shed fresh sea salt on ideas, ideas that came from us and yet still feel like a delivery from the stork, like a 10 dollar bill found in the back pocket of your favorite jeans you haven’t worn in weeks. Reading this question stirs memories of moments with loved ones across decades, all woven together with filaments of exhalation and bliss, being seen, being missed. This question held my hand as I gently rocked my grief into gratitude. At the end of the day, missing someone makes your world bigger.

I must admit I know the author of this question. She has been a friend for decades at this point, and I began to pen this essay the morning after I attended a dinner party of mostly music folks. The 13 of us lingered over cream puffs and red wine and hot burning candles with too-long wicks. Each of us were to pick one song that encapsulated how we felt in the sixth grade. The host made a playlist in real-time as we each giggled and mumbled through our eleven year-old answers. When it was my turn, to re-enter 1986, I immediately belted out “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode. I could have named other idols like Bowie, Lenny Kravitz, Prince, but I didn’t. 

Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there.

Someone who’s there.

Image by Hailley Howard

As I listened to my chosen song in a circle of new faces, I thought of you. You, who asked this question. You, who were one of the main soundtracks of my sixth grade existence. We were friends and neighbors, too. Remember the prank calls? Remember the countless Ding Dongs and Doritos– treats so forbidden in my home and flowing in abundance in yours? Heaven! Remember the incredibly important breaking news we penned in notes passed by our lockers, and how we thought neon to be the greatest invention in the entire world?

We had no mobile phones; we communicated with mix tapes on cassettes, stickers and charades. We picketed for our favorite teacher, a first taste of standing up for goodness, of devoting ourselves to wrapping up the carpet of society, of looking underneath, of finding the earth and the clouds. Remember?

I think of my daughter today. 
Her world is so much more intricate, and she carries so much more wisdom than we did.
We listened to Depeche Mode on tape!
We were so young, so free.
You were a pirate, a lighthouse, a slumber party.

Feeling unknown
And you’re all alone
Flesh and bone
By the telephone
Lift up the receiver
I’ll make you a believer

We grew up, of course. 
What else could we do?
We evolve, we change.
We live, we die. 
We look for our true life’s calling. 

What we keep is what we give to the people that mean everything to us. These are the houses we craft inside ourselves. The scenes play through my head, those pressing few years of middle school and these pressing years I’ve just spent with a partner, experiences that stir joy and sorrow and that we nevertheless insist upon remembering with fierce honesty and faithfulness.

Once a dear friend told me he does not like the words I miss you, as they seem to affirm lack, space, that which does not bond. “Why must I say I miss you, if we are so in sync?” Yet there are many kinds of ties. Cosmic ones, earthly ones. We want to hold hearts, and we want to hold hands as well. “Reach out, touch faith,” as Depeche Mode would say.

Take second best
Put me to the test
Things on your chest
You need to confess
I will deliver
You know I’m a forgiver

[I texted my ex to ask, “Is it scientifically proven that the heart feels more at night?] Lately, I am seeing how “I miss you” means “I am thinking of you,” or “You have made a permanent mark on my heart,” or “I feel you even when you are far away,” or when we are broken up, or when you are speaking from the grave. People we meet live in us, in who we are and how we are even when we move forward.

So, yes.
I miss you.
I miss you.
I feel you.
I am with you.

I would like to meet everyone I’ve ever met and loved for lunch every day, and it would just keep going for an eternity. Until then, we have letters. We have thoughts. We have memories. We have questions. If you, reading this, are feeling lonely or far away, I feel you. You have a whole band of kindred spirits here, in our endless dialogue. And, you have me.

Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who cares
Your own personal Jesus
Someone to hear your prayers
Someone who’s there

[All italics are lyrics to the song “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode, © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC]

WHAT IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO THE WORDS “I MISS YOU?”