To Lily and All the Lies I've Told

She stood just under five foot tall. I remember the day that we met her saying, ‘4’11’’ is the cut off for legal dwarfism, and I’m 4’11’’ plus one quarter of an inch.’ She was feisty, but always in a good spirited cheeky way. Lily and my mom became best friends, often joking that lily was my mom's long lost daughter.

Lily was one of the only people to ever truly know me. And she loved me for who I was, not who I pretend to be. Since leaving her all those years ago I've had to find a woman that fit so perfectly in my embrace. And perhaps a large part of me doesn’t want to. See, at night I still think of that first weekend we spent together up in the snowy sierra mountains. It was February. We were both barely eighteen.

Oh man - just the pain of writing this - six years after the fact, having lived the life I have lived and still have that one weekend haunt me so…. I believe it’s the Buddhists who say ‘to live is to suffer.’ Or something along those lines.

That was the first hotel I had ever booked on my own. I’d just lost my virginity to Lily in the back of my 1995 Jeep Cherokee the week before. Things were moving fast for us then. I was falling in love. Still, to this day that feeling -of falling for Lily- is the benchmark I use for pure love. I’ve not felt that feeling since, to be honest. I’d quietly worried that the old jeep wouldn’t make it up the winding mountain highway to our shabby hotel in south lake Tahoe, but I kept that from Lily. We listened to the Lumineers second album ‘Cleopatra’ on the way up, nearly on a loop.

It’s so strange. To be twenty four years old. Having traveled the world. Help good and bad jobs. Dropped out of school and re-entered. To have found love in foreign countries and with many strange women. And now, to look back on all that only to realize that the weekend trip to Tahoe with Lily was one of the purest and most meaningful events in my life.

Our room was on the second floor. That putrid smell of stale cigarettes, mold, and freshly sprayed air freshener -familiar to anyone who has frequented hotels- overwhelmed our senses upon opening the door. It was dinner-time and light was fading quickly, so we agreed to walk up and down the street in search of food before we started to ‘relax’... we had both called it.

I still remember so clearly… Fausta Pasta it was called. A take out Italian food place permanently branded in memory as it made both of us very sick that night. We walked arm in arm back to the hotel as fresh snow began coating the sidewalk. Lily rested her head on my left shoulder. Everything in life, at that moment, was exactly worth it. I remember thinking that. Everything I had weathered in life. Every choice and hardship had inevitably brought me to this night with Lily. So, it was all worth it. And I’ve never forgotten that. In fact, that’s one truth that has always kept me moving forward. That one day, that feeling may come again.

We actually made love before opening our to-go pasta boxes. Still very unskilled at love, I made it up as we went, but never once did I feel stressed or uncomfortable. It was total love. Total submission to the girl I’d do anything for. A feeling I’ve not felt since.

These memories honestly hurt to recall. Lily’s mom’s favorite animal was a barn owl, which is why this challenge sparked these memories.

I know now, what I couldn’t admit to myself at the end of Lily and my two year long romance. That I was not ready for true love yet. I wanted to be, but was far from ready. And that’s okay too, I guess. If Lily and I had stayed together it would have inhibited all the life I was able to live after our split up. So maybe the right thing does always happen. Or maybe there is no ‘right thing?

That's what keeps me on the move I suppose. The ancient belief in the road. In the next town. In a new friend. A new job. Something else, something more is out there for me, isn't it? I must find out. I'm so sorry Lily.

That night in Tahoe, after we made love and ate Fausta Pasta's finest Chicken Alfredo, Lily stated, 'Hey, I love you.' She said it while looking straight into my eyes in that fearless way she often did things. I didn't need to think about it. About how to respond and all that it entailed. I responded without pause, 'Lily, I love you so fucking much.'

And that is the only time I have responded with confidence to 'I love you.'