A cold rain hits the ground, it's a busy town layout. It doesn't matter where, from my experience every city is the same after a while. Shuffled feet kick the rain on the ground, everybody rushing to get out of the rain that's already done it's worst. But there's those fragile few, those undeniably insane few that walk slowly, drinking in the atmosphere and feeling replenished. There could be many names for them but I know only one: Lovers. But not in the average sense. These are the souls that float free from the chains life would have them bear. Even though they try they never quite grasp the reality of college and work that others might. So each attempt to flesh out a piece of this American pie has resulted in undue stress and unnecessary disappointment. Simply put, it's because that's not what they were meant for. They were meant to be the support crew for all of those less fortunate and more. These are the martyrs you've always meant to thank but never had the time, the good guys you hoped wouldn't finish last (but always knew would). Those that would have you sit up the watch the sunrise for no other reason than you hadn't before. These are the lovers. And as they walk through the rain they think not of a cold running down their spine, or that annoying squeak your shoes make when water finally breaches their canvas hull. They focus on the upper, the clouds in the sky pouring their own hearts on the ground. Because it was never thinking about themselves that made them so happy: it was the focus on others. Which is, you may have been asking (or may knot), why they found it so easy to sacrifice. It was a month in 2007 when I found out that, wanting forever to be simply he who would tell their tale, I was to find out that I was a lover. I guess I'd always known in the same way we always knew our parents were our parents, or that the sky was blue. We came upon it once and never questioned it again. I had recently been exploring what was possible the best executed year of my life, having the excellence of the semester five way to the flurried passion of the summer. And it was at a party that I ran into old friends and new. And the girl who might help me learn to be this man of warmth. That night there were more men than women in the room (mathematically speaking it shouldn't be, yet is always, the case) and each group of vultures with their white polo feathers had marked an idea. An inkling. And as much as I loved them I couldn't help but sneer at my two best friends as they locked eyes with me, all three thinking of the same girl. But that night, of course, could only go to one. And that wasn't me. But this girl chose my friend Aaron, with whom she shared a three hour conversation, great by any standards, a two dates and one awkward kiss. It would turn out, though, that as the new school semester began that our social circles were more than brushing: they had lapsed into one. It was at this point that she began changing as a person, for better, and her attention was turned to another of my friends whom she was infatuated with and who had also been in the battle arena since that first night, Evan. But it was no matter because her and I had started to bond. As friends, or maybe a little more, we were definitely connecting. As her changes progressed there was a warm breeze blowing across the shell I'd erected years prior, but all the while just backdraft from the gale forced attention she'd been giving Evan. Still, by some stroke of fate he was one of the few people I knew that would not bend to her affection. Not because of lack of interest but because of a different point of reference in essentially all of life. I know, that's a pretty big gap to leap and she tried, she feel, and then she rose on her own two feet. She swore off love for sometimes, becoming plagued by the thought of possibly never finding the one true love she's always wanted. Would she be alone forever? No, I told her, everyone has someone (I of course giving her answers to the same questions I was beginning to ponder). So for months there was this mutual affection, the Harry and Sally greatness that I'm convinced doesn't come along for no reason at all. And then something horrible started happening: I began to want to kiss her. Not since that first night, with the liquid courage in hand, had I wanted so terribly to kiss her. To make a move. And this began my third era. The era in which her change leads to mine. After weeks of discussing the most personal levels of our connections, and really getting those meaty questions out of the way, we ended up where the whole of this began: a party. And after some drinks, her and Evan kissed. And words were exchanged, I've been told, that resulted in her and my arguing in front of my house. So I invited her in and we chatted, her curfew elapsed she elected to stay the night. And that night, my good reader, was my bravest moment ever: I had shattered the shell like so many baby birds, and finally without hesitation reached out for what I wanted most right then and took, without shame or fear. I kissed her. And she kissed me back. And she confessed that she'd wanted to kiss me a time before, on New Years, but it never happened ( I having perceived her affections placed on Aaron again) and I was overjoyed. And the next morning she went on her way and I smiled. I was truly, for the first time in a long time, happy. One week later we sat at the park, having laid to rest any thought of us going ahead with more than the friendship. And after we watched the sunset she stopped dead in her tracks, I turned, and she kissed me again. She's always been one for the timing. That night, I went bowling with my guys and all the while focused not on the pins but that evening and the week before it. And when I got home I got word she'd lost an earring in my car. So I waited outside for her to come get it, she walked up (both ears perfectly adorned) and expressed a desire for more. And who was I but to oblige? (who are we kidding I was ecstatic). We kissed and went to out separate houses, now sleeping under the watchful eye of whatever star keeps ones boyfriend and girlfriend intact. And after a week of this, there was another call. It's not that I hadn't noticed it: the dream was less than perfect. I went to her place, ascended the steps of her soon to be relocated bedroom and took the bullet like a man. She wanted her best friend back. I was fated to be either one or the other, and she needed the friend more. So I once again obliged. And at this point I wore the stinging sear of the martyr. I grieved for a few days, took my somber walks, then began once again to feel the clouds above me looking down, to feel a wind I had been feeling the last few months with her. I was ok again, but not only ok, I was changed. I had become a lover, not just a writer but a full fledged lover. She had thawed that which two girls years ago had unknowingly frozen over with disinterest. And now I live that life, of the one who always hopes he finds his souls recognition of it's counterpoint in another. And she helped me get there. And wish as I do that things had worked out with her, I've always had the higher cognition to believe not necessarily that everything happens for a reason, but something more: with reason, I know that anything is possible and that I can handle each outcome to the best any heart can ask for. I simply make do with the lemons I'm provided. I'll be posting this as I leave for a setting much more appropriate for my intro, dear reader, as I sit in front of both a laptop and the skyscape of a city in rain. I've got to be signing off now, for there's plenty of walking left to do tonight. And this week. And this life. Bon chance. .Steve