Sometimes I catch myself wondering if two strangers in two different cities, both fighting insomnia, ever drag out of bed, throw on hoodies, fumble around in the dark for their car keys and tiptoe to the garage. They don’t even bother to tug socks or shoes on, they just leave because the idea of escape is irresistible and driving at night always seems the thing to do whenever your heart is heavy and you need to be alone.
Maybe he locks the house, backs out the driveway, puts his favorite record on and makes for the interstate. It’s 1:39 AM so there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do even if there was a good enough reason to stop for. The cops are clustered in the shadows by the freeway picking up speeders, so he drives through town 10 mph over the limit and doesn’t even check the mirrors. He takes the corners sharp. The windows are down, the air hangs heavy on the scent of damp earth and wet streets from the summer drizzle that blanketed the city an hour ago. The steady pitter-patter on his bedroom skylight complimented the weight of insomnia so well, it kept him wide awake all night and that’s what got him thinking in the first place. He’d fought it off as best he could, but once the splintered painful memories began working their way into his mind, he was a goner. Driving is still the only way he knows how to choke back the lump in his throat. The pain has become familiar but that doesn’t mean it hurts any less.
He’s lonely and he knows it.
Maybe she slides the patio door closed as quietly as she can, steps through the damp backyard toward her sleeping car (parked a little too close to the curb) and steals away into the night. She puts the sunroof back and lets the wind whip through her hair as the headlights drill holes into the misty blackness ahead. She’ll be the first to admit some nights are worse than others, but it’s nights like these that make it hardest to breathe. It’s not that she’s crushed about the past, she was heartbroken at first and that’s a given, but enough time has passed to allow her to heal and she’s only beginning to breathe easier again. Unfortunately, certain memories set off tidal waves of heartache, and once the right thought hits her, it’s like a snowflake that starts an avalanche. Bitter memories come rushing in so fast, she starts drowning and it doesn’t matter how hard she kicks and struggles, everything reminds her of the way things used to be… or rather how bitterly they ended. It’s early Friday morning and most of her friends have to be up at 6:30 AM so there’s nobody to call, and a good chance that any sent texts will be left unanswered until lunch break later that afternoon. But that’s alright; she doesn’t really feel like talking anyway. She just needs to drive.
These people are strangers. They’ve never met before. Neither has any idea the other exists.
Maybe he lives in a small town an hour south of the city and whenever he feels like this, he heads north. Something about the silhouetted skyline framed by the dirty windshield is comforting to him. It gives him an easy target to shoot for, a goal to work towards, something to think about at least, anything to keep his mind from wandering into unpleasant territory. The darkness feels good. The chilly midnight air gushing in through the windows makes him shiver but not enough to roll them back up. The occasional pair of headlights summit the hillside ahead and eventually turn into an irregular stream as countryside slowly turns to suburban outskirt. He takes an exit and heads west on a frontage road.
Maybe she lives by herself in a cozy apartment a few miles east of the city and whenever she feels like this, she makes a beeline for a secret place only she knows about. It’s actually not all thatsecret, it’s really just a cute little lakeside park with a few picnic benches, a playground with swings, and a sandy beach. She’s been there several times before and always drives home feeling a bit more resolved and determined to move on. When things are bad, swinging is her remedy. Since she was a little girl, swinging the hours away always helped to take the sting out of loneliness. Swinging made everything right, or at least helped the endeavor, and it was always as if the troubles seemed to sort themselves out after hours on the swing set. Tonight she knows she needs to swing for a long time, so she parks the car well away from the wash of streetlights and tiptoes through the shadowy parking lot, still warm from the afternoon sun.
Maybe the frontage road twists and turns, rises and falls, winds through the hills and eventually takes him over the suburban border, a threshold where the sea of residential homesteads turn into pure untainted forest. Had he switched the song or checked his phone, he might have missed the sign that pointed the way to a little lakeside park two miles ahead.
Maybe the park is pitch black, lit only by a garden lamp post surrounded by a fog of insects. She feels her way down the cool concrete sidewalk toward the swings and smiles at the sudden sensation of sand between her toes. It’s a breezy night, her favorite kind of breezy, chilly enough to make her glad she’d worn a sweatshirt. Freshwater waves fizz as they roll up onto the beach and soak into the sand. She lets the wind brush her hair down around her neck as her eyes slowly grow used to the darkness. She settles into a swing and pumps her legs. The starry canopy pulses overhead.
Maybe his headlights sweep across the parking lot but never land on the lone parked car hidden in the shadows. He turns the ignition off and just sits there with his eyes closed for a moment, listening to the ticking of the engine and the wind rushing through the leaves above. He has no idea where he is or why he ended up here, he’d just stopped here because he felt like it. The sound of water somewhere out in the darkness reaches his ears.
Maybe she’s utterly lost in dreams and beauty and reverie, swept up in wonder, marvel, the lush scent of forest, lake and recent rainfall, just swinging, swinging her troubles away. Maybe she doesn’t even hear him coming — after all, he’s in bare feet too. He steps off the sidewalk into the sand and his car keys slip from his hand. Maybe the sudden jangle shatters the peaceful silence and she can’t help but gasp as she snaps out of dreamy distraction.
Maybe her gasp startles him and he whirls around to see a pretty girl on the playground swings peering back at him, just as surprised as he is.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” he stammers. “I didn’t know anyone was out here!”
Maybe they squint through the darkness at each other for a moment, unsure of what to say.
“Oh, that’s alright,” she finally replies. “This beach doesn’t exactly belong to me.”
Maybe he decides he should at least start things off on the right foot and say hello. They both exchange shy hellos and laugh nervously. He apologizes for bothering her and starts heading back toward the parking lot, but she stops him. She hesitates, but can’t help asking how he wound up out here in the middle of the night. He pauses and tells her he honestly has no idea, he just had to get out of the house and after a lot of driving, this is where he ended up. She tells him, if there ever was the perfect place to escape to, this place was it. He takes a good look around and can’t help but agree with her.
Maybe he can’t seem to gracefully say goodnight and leave, and maybe she can’t help but point out the obvious — that there’s an empty swing beside her.
Maybe the two of them start swinging and the hours go by. Who knows what they talk about or what either of them secretly think.
Maybe neither of them can find the right words to explain it, but somehow, by some unexplainable process, old wounds slowly begin to heal. Maybe things happen, maybe security is felt, maybe vulnerability makes a sudden appearance and with it, an avalanche of sincerity, honesty, kindness, compassion, empathy, understanding and warmth. Maybe the painful past, for both of them, miraculously begins to flicker and slowly fade.
Maybe they feel a connection between them, and not only is it completely unexpected, it’s absolutely beautiful.
Sometimes I catch myself thinking things like this really do happen, two people really do meet this way and scenarios like these really do result in happy endings. But then again, I’m a wishful thinker so what do I know about romance? I don’t always wish I was involved in such dreamy scenarios as I imagine, perhaps I’m not cut out for something quite as cinematic, but regardless, I’d be a liar if I said I’ve never thought about them.What if things like this really do happen? Maybe they happen all the time. Or maybe moments like these NEVER happen and the daydream itself is stretched so thin, it’s become cliche and should be deemed ridiculous.
Can two people, hurting for the same reasons, randomly meet by accident at 2 AM and each feel some innate sense of “knowing” that the search is over? Maybe they’re not even searching at all, maybe they’re both trying to stay as far away from the mere ideaof falling in love as possible, all because of past heartbreak and how messed up it left each of them. It doesn’t matter who these hopeless romantics are or where they came from, the point is that they meet, and suddenly the old familiar pain of past shipwrecked relationships disappears. The old aches suddenly vanish. They’re made for each other and they know it.
I suppose it all boils down to whether or not you believe in love, luck, accidents or miracles, but all things aside, what if one of the two characters in such a conceptual story was you? What if you’d been through more heartache than you could stand, and the second you met the love of your life, you didn’t even have to think twice?
You just knew.
It’s an age-old daydream, but however improbable, I’ll be the first to admit I like to think such stories are not so impossible.
The church is packed.
Maybe it’s so crazy, she peers at him from behind her veil, blinking back tears of joy… and he can’t help but smile back at her and mouth the words:
The more I think about it, the more I’ll bet things like this happen all the time and none of us know about it.
