The Day My Life Changed Overnight

It was almost TOO fantasy-like; but that's what made my heart feel as though in the next 2 or 3 seconds, it was going to implode- sending rays of multicolored sunshine bursting forth. The rain was coming down not in a flash-flood manner, but as though we were in a movie and a production assistant was following us (just out of the camera's perspective) with a showerhead apparatus; such that the camera would only catch the frame telling the viewer it was raining. The droplets caught the wrinkles in his forehead, the ends of his lashes, and crept willy-nilly into his beard. His semi-curly fade-and-taper was transformed into this wet Caesar cut, with the moisture developing a deep wave pattern starting at the crown of his beautiful manly head. Resplendent! The water dragged the bottom of his jeans past the sole of his Timberlands, making his thighs more apparent and even sexier than in my recent memory.

But here we were, standing in the middle of EVERYWHERE, looking into each other's skies. We were where every couple finds themselves in the 10 seconds after they realize and admit to each other that they are indeed in love- with each other- and that they are fine (in fact, elated) with it. The noise of shuffling feet passing by, the weight of furrowed brows and side-glances, and all the injustices of the world seemed to melt in that instance. We were in love with each other, and we knew it. We not only knew it, but we communicated it to each other. We not only communicated it to each other, but we were fine with it. So fine with it that this moment- this etching out of time and space- is (and would continue to be for the remainder of my existence) one that I would forever take to be a DEFINING MOMENT. One that would play over and over and over and over just like this:

him taking my hand (or did I take his?), the cupping sound made by the insides of our hands smashing violently against the raindrops that found themselves there. Myself watching (and I'm sure mimicking) the calm, knowing smile I found on his lips. Me watching as his eyesight sharpened enough to penetrate mine. Me holding my breath, even as I watched his chest heave innumerable small, nervous exhalations. Me thinking "things will never be the same, we have crossed a threshold" as I focused on him leaning into me so close I could taste his bodyscent. My own body quipping as I felt first his hand on the small of my back and then his other hand at the base of my neck, followed by the sweet cushion of his lips and the indescribable wetness of his tongue. My eyes turning into squints as I took him in.

And we STAYED that way, for about 2 minutes of eternity, feeling God's tears and Zeus' winds whip around us- and not giving a damn. We didn't care about who might see us, what they might think, how our over-priced and over-soaked gear might be deemed unwearable heretofore, or what challenges Satan had in store for us. I wanted this feeling, this moment, to last me long enough so that I wouldn't mourn its end. And then our lips finally parted, making that juicy separation sound that the end of the most intense kisses make toward the end of their creation. I stepped back from him, taking in both his fluid and his visage (which had its own fluidity). I watched as his eyes, which had been closed through the entire liplock, slowly opened to show him the man who would be his soulmate. In his left eye, I saw complete satisfaction, pride, and the dissolution of years of pain, deceit and heartache. In his right, I saw the vacations, the introduction to his mother, the arguments, the co-habitation, the presentation of the simple-but-inherently-elegant single platinum band, the crying, the triumphs, the morning kisses on the back of the neck, the mind-blowing sex, and the future.

All of that I saw on that Brooklyn sidewalk. As we walked hand-in-hand to the subway. As we held each other on the A train toward Harlem. PURE. Yeah, things would never be the same. And thank God for that...