Pink Shirt Day Revisited

It's out there in the garage. It is. I know this only because I know this, not because I've checked or looked at it. I suppose it's nothing more than an assumption at this point. I stashed it in a footlocker full of other memorabilia and keepsakes years ago. This, of course, hasn't been important for better than two years. You see, up until last weekend that footlocker was in a closet in my house in Texarkana. Now it's in my garage in Austin. It's purely coincidental. Everything I own is here now, including the footlocker and everything stashed in it.

If Lori hadn't been late, I doubt I would have thought of it. Lori was my moving help last Saturday morning and she arrived an hour later than scheduled. Bored while I waited, I dug through a couple boxes. I found my old journals and my teddy bear collection. Then I moved onto the footlocker. What could it hurt? I knew what was in there, but I didn't think about what was in there. Right on top was a stack of old letters from one of my long distance ex-girlfriends (the one a few still refer to as my 'wife' or 'ex-wife' and the only one I don't have any communication with) and the letter my girlfriend wrote me after our dog died.

Wistful Mood, Party of One? As if that wasn't bad enough, I dug slightly and found the photo album. She entered and exited my life right on the cusp of digital photography so 'our' photos are the last I ever put in a book. Ok, so it's not just pictures. Because I wanted to remember (at the time. I'm cool with forgetting bits and pieces these days), I slid notes and assorted 'memorabilia' under the clear pages or safe keeping. So, not only did I run into pictures from what seems to be another life (or maybe it was a dream), but I came face-to-face with various 'I love yous' in WRITING. I've always been big on proof and this photo album always did the trick.

Thankfully Lori showed up before I could dig any farther. If I had, I would have assuredly run into 'it'. Truly, I didn't think of it until Monday evening in the middle of a Spin ride. You see, my Spin bike is in the garage right next to all the stuff I moved from Texarkana. Including the footlocker. Where 'it' is. Don't ask me why I thought of it just then. Low blood sugar? Oxygen depletion? Boredom? The last vestiges of my wistful mood? All I know is that I looked over at my junk, saw the footlocker, and remembered 'it'.

I could look if I wanted to. I'm not saying I don't want to look. I'm sure part of me does. I promise it won't throw me over the edge. I won't suddenly get sad or angry or dissolve into a puddle of self-pity. It's actually the opposite. 'It' reminds me of a time when I didn't dare dare and reassures me that God does have a plan. What I couldn't do that day, eventually I did (ok, she'd say she did the doing, but I promise I was going to - she just beat me to it). It was my first experience with perfection and it never fails to convince me that all things are possible and thoughts most absolutely do become things.

So what is 'it'? What's tucked safely away in my footlocker? It's borderline embarrassing/crazy. It is. I'm not going to lie. I blogged around it years ago. In fact, I recounted the story in one of the first blogs I ever posted to Myspace. I searched back and found it -

Pink shirt day… It could have been yesterday, I remember it so well. She was the most absolutely breathtaking, stunning, painfully beautiful woman that I'd ever seen. Maybe it was the pinkness of the shirt next to her tanned skin. Maybe it was the hair that fell to her shoulders, unbound by the usual pony tail. Maybe it was the eyes that met mine just for an instant. Maybe it was the small breasts I could see beneath the pink shirt. Maybe it was all or maybe it was nothing. But, God, my life changed that day. I had never seen anyone so beautiful before. And all I could do was walk by her on my way out the door. I was dying inside. Just say hi. Just smile. Just do something. Nothing. I did nothing. But the memory of that day was etched in my brain. Right now, this minute, I am there just as I was all those years ago.

What do I have? The pink shirt. Yes, really. From that day - the day I didn't dare. After we got together (months after Pink Shirt Day), I told her that if she ever got rid of it, I wanted it. Sure enough, along down the road, she gave it to me. We'd broken up by then, but I'm pretty sure was still picking up her bread crumbs as if they were diamonds (there's the embarrassing/crazy part).

Something in me wanted it. At the time, it was probably 99% about her. Looking back now, it has less to do with her and more to do with me. It's about what that day means in the long run - Even the impossible is possible. If the beautiful girl in the pink shirt, who was at the top of the List of Impossible Things, could fall in love with me, there wasn't anything I couldn't do.

I still believe that nearly a decade later. So, why haven't I opened the footlocker and pulled it out? I really don't know. Because I pride myself on being stronger than that? Because I don't suddenly want it to be more about her and less about me? Let's just go with this - Some things are best kept an assumption. I assume it's in there - in the footlocker in the garage with the rest of my stuff. That's good enough for me.