I am seventeen, dancing along the pine tree trail to visions of his dreadlocked hair and whispers of that voice clinging to my ears - so sweet and hung with belly laughter. "I want to be his groupie," I proclaim, all tied up in laissez-faire and the naivete of a girl who grew up virginal and country.
And he, the supportive boyfriend at my side, bends to whisper in tones of not, "you know that means you want to sleep with him..."
And heat builds at my nape and crawls over my scalp and the blush of a rose plume lights my cheeks and I stumble to default on what I so boldly called into the sky because that is certainly not what I meant.
What I did mean was that the lyric and humor spilling from the stage so warmed my heart that I wished to pack it up in a little envelope and slip into my pocket and carry it with me for days of grey skies and lonely nights. For joy in the moments stripped.
I have doubled my life since that moment. Somehow still aware of that little sunshine tucked away, waiting for the day it bursts again upon the horizon of this blooming life.
And so it did - that fine day in May when I left behind that supportive boyfriend (now supportive husband) under the ruse of youth leadership when the truth was, I was really going for a boy...
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And that boy is now a man and still every bit the memory I had hidden away...and what a surprise to realize that it had all been true and worth it...
I watch as the contagion of the disease he creates spreads into the eyes of the girls around me and I feel robbed for a moment - because for so long he had been only mine and I liked that no one else knew the touch of his sunshine - but why should I horde what is not mine to hold? So, have at it, girls. I will share. Life just got a little brighter, didn't it?