Time

    She tossed everything aside in a hurry looking for the book.The book. She flipped through the pages. Something familiar yet now very distant overwhelmed her. Just like the memories that the pages evoked in her.
She held on to the memories like fragile rose petals. Rose petals . . . upon a sudden flash of a far-off memory she started ruffling through the pages in a hurry. As if looking for something. Somewhere...somewhere within these pages...there should be a.... yes, there it was... a rose ...old and dried by age. It had once been red. Blood red. Now, just a dirty brown. She smiled. Her first rose. She let out a chuckle. Who was she kidding? Her only rose. The day she had received it she had held on to it with such joy jumping about the backstage, the blossoming pangs of childhood passion. She remembered being embarrassed about the change from a staunch tomboy to a lady. Blushing she had taken it meekly from a classmate. Unknown to him she had had a crush on him. He had taken over her imaginations for a few months and she had hoped (and knew) somewhere deep within that he had been just as smitten by her or at least was playing that part quite well. Silly girl! She looked away through the open window. What was he doing now? An MBA or something like that, his Facebook profile had once said...

She flipped through the pages again... she had gathered all the old slams, autograph books and diaries on the spur of the moment. She had been watching‘First Love'.No matter how many times she watched it, it always gave her the same old feeling. The same old pain.  It had been 8 years. She had been engaged to a very loving man for over a year. And yet, that same name and the same pain haunted her every time.

          There it was ... the scribble she had developed the next year. All the eager emotion tumbling out even before the words would form. Yet, penned with a persistence to keep it etched in time just as beautifully as it feels. As it felt.

Page after page, she read. She had hoped that the past year might have changed things. She had been in love again. Or, so she had convinced herself. He was perfect for her. Just what she had always wanted. Well, she might have wanted anyway. She couldn't remember ever making a character sketch for her ‘future husband’ even when her room mates back in college were busy making one for her. For her, the word ‘husband’ had always had an image associated with it.

          She knew her fiance valued her above all else. He took her fits of anger in the very mature way that was becoming of his age. A dire necessity if one was to be her suitor. He was funny, loving and responsible. What more could a girl want? She knew for sure now that her future lay with him. Then why was she unable to control the tears... the choking in her throat. Or was that choking within her heart? He was a software engineer  ...somewhere far away in the realm of silicon chips of a supposedly developing India.  She knew there was no future there. Not with him. She hardly knew him today. He was busy building a life for his mother and family. And yet she wondered if anytime in the past he had ever wanted her as much she wanted him. Had wanted him. Probably not. It must have been just another one of her silly teenager fantasies.

           She flipped another page. Slam messages and bold poetic words, jotted down once by a girl eager to convey all that she felt. One, which at the same time had been modest enough to be futile in every way.

Her eyes fell upon a lengthy poem. Though she had not understood a word of it she had meticulously copied it down for the mere beauty of it. Hoping that over the years her understanding of poetry had grown she read it again slowly.

“When you held my arm against your chest, 
 I felt your heart beating... slowly. Caring.

Flowing tears on my arm.  

Mildred, I traveled through wide oceans,

meadows and saw many people.

But, I couldn't replace you with anyone.

Sometimes, I sense your heart is deeper than the oceans that I have crossed.

When I think of you, I will still feel your heart beating,

and flowing tears on my arm.”

And as she read the concluding lines, her eyes now threatening to run over with hot tears could contain them no more. Nor the emotions that threatened to destroy her heart. 

Wow.

Yes, that was how exactly it felt. Time had done its job. Finally, she had understood.