I Love You To The Ends Of The Earth
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
They say that memory is a funny thing. There are a million melodies stored in a human mind, but the memory chooses its own playlist at its own time. And right now the songs in his mind hardly made sense.
He was thinking of forever, maybe she was too, and how the word felt much heavier right now than it did over the past two years.
There was a time they linked arms and stood by the shore, watching other people run into the water. It wasn’t that they were afraid to take the leap, but they enjoyed standing there, at the edge of infinity, as they called it.
Today, they stood there for a long while. Much longer than they usually do. Their arms weren’t linked. They didn’t speak much. They stood still, occasionally saying a thing or two, until their skin begin to roughen and they could taste salt on their lips.
They had known each other for a while, but their first real conversation happened when he asked her what home was to her. She was raised in five different countries and it interested him to find out what her answer would be.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I like to wander.”
He asked her if there was any place she’d like to live in someday, forever.
“There would be. But I wouldn’t know where unless I’ve seen enough, will I?” she asked.
That evening they went to the new Japanese restaurant that had opened up across the block. She wanted to visit Japan, she said, with a sort of light in her eyes that drew him in. During the Sakura season, preferably. And picnic under a large tree that blew pink petals into her hair as she drank sake and the sun wrapped her whole.
She wanted to travel to more countries than he even knew existed. There was so much to see and to learn and to feel!
They began to spend every weekend together and soon, were in love. In the kind of love that only has a way in, and no real way out.
As strong as her pull was to the breadth of the planet, so was his pull to her. So when she insisted that he joined her trip to Japan, he conceded. He knew that he would have to work a few extra hours, and cut back on cab rides to commute, but he learnt to like the cadence of a crowded metro. She promised that the money he was able to save would be worth it.
It was. They were in Japan for ten days. He thought of the way that her face lit up when they passed by a Sakura tree. The petals did fall into her hair, and he loved to pull them out each time, gently enough to not mess up her hairdo. They were always wired on some form of caffeine from the nearest kissaten — which she taught him all about — and laughed, and sang, and walked around in a dream.
It thrilled her to discover that he was a no-fuss traveler. When they got back, she kept referring to him as her favorite travel buddy. This pleased him even more than when she began calling him her boyfriend. Boyfriends, she’d had several before, but he was her FAVOURITE travel buddy.
He loved her a little more every day. She seemed ethereal to him and helped him discover a part of himself that he didn’t know existed. A part that seemed like adventure. They took long drives to the beach, or the closest campsites every month. She taught him to pitch a tent and start a bonfire. When they sat down at night and listened to the fire crackle, he felt that as though this could be his forever.
Over the next two years, she planned their travels. They went to Turkey, Georgia, and a month ago, to Cambodia.
She had spoken about catching the sunrise at Angkor Wat for months before their trip. Every day she would send him a new picture cooing at the colours of the sky and the lake. He was pretty excited while planning their trip too. But Cambodia turned out quite different. He would never forget it.
It was their third day in the country. They made it to the ruins of the Angkor Wat temple early enough to secure a good spot. It didn’t get as crowded as they were afraid, but there were definitely more people than he cared for. When the sunrise painted the sky purple and pink, she linked her arm into his and said it for the first time.
“I could stay like this forever.”
He knew it was meant to be beautiful, and it probably was, but he didn’t see it. He tried hard, but he seemed to have left his awe somewhere along the way. In fact, if he were honest, the whole trip to Cambodia felt a bit lacklustre. He started to wonder if people were only given a certain amount of awe per year. Maybe he used his up. Things began to fade from exciting to foreign. He tried to tell her about it when they returned.
“That’s what makes it so much fun!” she said. “You step completely outside everything you know and learn so much more than you ever thought could exist.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to her. How could he explain to her that something that was a way of life for her, might only have been an exciting phase for him?
They lumbered from the beach to the car. He wondered if she knew. If she would understand it, if she would feel offended, but most of all if she would still want him.
He loved her. But over the past few months, he understood that they shared different meanings of adventure. To her, it meant learning more about the world. Seeing different people, understanding another culture, and standing in awe of beautiful places around the globe. To him, it meant seeing different parts of himself, understanding that he could always surprise himself, and having a chance to share another day with his beautiful girlfriend.
He thought about telling her at the beach, but he could feel that she already knew. She didn’t link her arm into his or say anything about forever. She hardly said anything at all.
They drove along in silence as she rolled down the window and turned up the radio. The song was a happy one, and it was loud enough to drown the other melodies in his head that afternoon. Maybe they could make it work, who knew? Every moment with this woman was an adventure.
