Beer Bottles - Today and Tomorrow

Beer bottles, half-empty and half-full, were scattered across tables in a room meant for reuniting. As the evening came to a close, people I had loved and hated, often at the same time, left to return to normal life. And all that remained were the beer bottles.
Misty, tear-filled eyes gazed over the scene, covering a heart that had wanted to say so much, but had conveyed too little. Sure, we had talked of the past and the future, but not of the present, this moment and tomorrow, the only existence we have control over.
The unspoken, wordless emotions of joy and loss, fear and desire still haunt me late into the night. They, too, will leave that room in my heart during the coming days, as I also return to daily routines. But the void will still exist, without the words or opportunities to fill it completely, just as the half-empty beer bottles will exist in my mind's eye.
I had the opportunity, the possibility, to communicate heart to soul with the ones who made the memories of my youth. The person whose shoulder I slept on while returning from a Latin convention. The person who helped me survive Biology Two. The person I hated without cause or reason. The person I truly loved in high school, but did not realize it until much later.
Instead, I talked noisefully of unimportant things. Things temporal, not things eternal. A few moments, all too brief, were truly eternal. The touch of the friend whose shoulder I slept on. Looking through a picture album with a classmate, remembering loved friends who chose not to come. Talking with an elementary-school crush, and briefly mentioning those feelings for the first time to her face, although she had been aware in the third grade.
Equally as eternal will be the regrets, the missed notes between the music of our voices. Looking at the entrance to see who had just arrived rather than listening to the expressions of the person who had chosen to communicate with me. Blinding friends with the flash of my camera rather than taking the moment to memorize the lines on their faces, faces I probably won't see for another ten years. Not going on the dance floor during either rendition of "Love Shack."
These people, friends and otherwise, helped me become the person I am today, the bad and the good, the poorer and the richer, during that vortex called high school. I touched the heart of only a few of these classmates yesterday, even though I had more than ten hours of potential quality time.
A soft smile just crept across my lips as I let go of the past, realizing that I can not change those ten hours together. They are what they were, and, overall, they were good. I can not bring people to the reunion who did not choose to come. I also can not speak the wordless emotions to the ones who didn't take time to communicate with me. They are the half-empty beer bottles in the room of my heart that will remain unfilled for ten more years.
But there are some bottles that can be filled again, with a new spirit of friendship, a new love that continues despite distance and differences. A love not based in the vortex, but only in today and tomorrow. I will not wait another ten years to see these bottles of friendship filled, because these bottles, these friends whom I loved and want to love again may not be around in ten years.
Today and tomorrow, I will begin to pour new wine into these bottles, replacing the stale beer of high school's forced friendships. And if just one of these friendships overflows, whether tomorrow or at the next reunion, then I will be a blessed man.

© Kevin Gadsey, August 4, 2002