The passion with which he expressed his conviction was stunning, despite his atheism, despite his cynicism and jaded mentality. His words were not harsh or bitter, but filled with wonder. Our conversation had started out with every day pleasantries and polite banter but strayed quickly into sex and religion and his daughters gleaming smile.

It was two in the morning. His shift was well underway and the regulars had made their requisite beer runs. This was the lull between hardened alcoholics and early morning commuters in which we found time to stand face to face and argue for no one to see.

He stood behind his counter, gaurded yet commanding, his voice stuttering and skipping into falsetto as he ascended from passion to hysteria. While he explained the complexities of molecules dancing around each other, of infinite space stretching forever into each solid mass, I felt myself being lifted by his words. No amount of searching for god has ever brought me as close to understanding as this two minute conversation.

As I sit here, now, I wish I could describe the feeling I had when he explained his reasoning to me. I have never been one to give myself to faith but at that moment I wanted nothing more than to grasp that impossibly bright light in my hand and stare into its infinity. I stood still, gaping at his words, my heart a black hole of disbelief and longing.

I wish I could break down his explanation as eloquently as he uttered it in the silent store, when his hands sliced the air in dramatic animation. The charades were nearly as stimulating as his words. My shocked eyes could not be drawn from him. The word astounded does not compare to the quasi enlightenment I felt under those glowing flourescent lights.

We are all a blend of the tiniest parts of molecules running endlessly parallel to each other separated infinitely by distance. Even the most solid matter, the counter he leaned next to, the cell phone I clutched in my hand, the floor we both stood on, is composed of nothing more than rigid distance. Our perception tells us we see fake laminate and paint, hard and smoothe to the touch with no gaps between. As he explained it, even the molecules that compose those solid surfaces are not solid themselves. There  is, there will always be, space between the parts that compose the most unmoveable of objects.

There will always be negative space where nothing exists, even in the objects our minds tell us are definite. We are all composed of distance and nothingness that stretches on between atoms and makes a blend of all matter solid or liquid or gaseous. We are all merely pluses and minuses in the grid of space. As he said these words, I did not feel empty. I felt the same awe I heard in his voice.

I left the store contemplative and emotional.

This happened the weekend I met you.

I think often about that distance, knowing that every object I come into contact with is no different from me, knowing that as I lay my head on my pillow, the only thing that differentiates it from me are the atoms and the negative space. I want to write about the amazement I felt, however brief it was, and how I glimpsed just a bit of infinity in that comprehension.

I think about how when my hand holds yours and our fingers intertwine, it is a mass of positives and negatives. My hand is indecipherable from your hand. If I lay my cheek next to yours, the only thing that separates us is our collective mind seeing what it will.

I said I have never been given to faith, and the same is true for fate. Our lives are not meant to happen, but the patterns that exist are undeniable.

We are complementary. We are positive and negative, both infinite space and nothingness. We are composed of distance, you and I, and each molecule pushes and pulls against those around it to close or open the gaps. When our entire beings are devoted to fighting infinite space, it is amazing that the connection between two fragile beings can survive physical and emotional distance.

But when I’m next to you with the soft hairs on my neck standing on end, I know it is because of the blending of the universe and that the atoms between us are perfectly charged. My hand and your face and the pillows we sleep on are one and the same, and this makes the endless distance bearable.

There is no natural metaphor for the constant ebb and flow of self esteem, of self worth, of security. It is only sufficiently described as the detumescence of emotion. It can be felt in the highest peak of happiness, when the heart is full to bursting and the only way to gain a cathartic release is to shriek uncontrollably until the tears come.

And then all it takes is one offhand comment, one sly but slightly backhanded compliment to bring it all crashing down again.

Sometimes a feeling is tangible enough that one could take it up in her hands, let it lay open faced in her palm, and stare it down so intently it shudders and bubbles up again in defiance. Even when taken hold of and dissected as lab rats, it is nearly impossible to cut through the mess of complexity that constitutes our emotions. I used to think our experiences were possible to overcome; now I understand once they happen, the alternate universe where they exist is in constant revolution and we are doomed to re-experience each wound fresh.

The past is impossible to escape. The most we can do is pluck those experiences from the mire, deconstruct each emotion, and let them sit staring at us. Only then can we analyze the systems that bring about the patterns which control our instinctive responses.

The clinical breakdown seems simple enough. Analyzing the patterns becomes more difficult but still bearable.

Facing the past honestly and openly is the hardest part of all.

Effecting change is the second hardest.

I can stare doe eyed and innocent at my past all I want but I know it will change nothing. I can analyze my experiences and why I let each pattern change me, only to realize the pattern I am in is the pattern I was in and the pattern I will be in for years to come. There are variations through each cycle, but it is the same. There is the hope, the longing, the absurd happiness, the general bitterness, and the hurt. There are the pursuers, who think they do good, or at the very least do not realize they actually do wrong. I wonder now, as I wondered then, if I fulfill that same role in someone else’s pattern. Do I cause the crash for anyone else?

Honesty is always the hard part. Introspection is simple when one maintains a filter and views experience through rose colored glasses. Edges blur when the glasses come off and depth perception becomes impossible to judge. We stumble through the world of analysis and reflection blind but coping and eventually we feel our way to the end, enlightened.

Muscles hard with anticipation, I sit contorted in an iron chair, a subtle pain from years of tension and anxiety creeping into my left leg, crawling its way slowly through my hip, and finally settling into a spasm in my lower spine. I don’t even realize how tense I am until my jaw begins to pulsate and my shoulders tremble. One by one, I let the muscles unwind, relax. It takes time, but I let myself ease out of the physical bind and into the emotional one, hoping to pick through the tangle of knots to make nice, straight threads with which I can weave more coherent thoughts. I inhale slowly, breathing in the bitter milky scent of the café.

“I’m not really sure where to start.” Lately all my sentences start out like this. I’m never sure. Not certain that I should speak at all, let alone certain enough to know where to begin.

“I mean, there are so many things I’ve stopped doing.” I tell myself I want to look up from the table, I want to look up into her eyes. She looks at me, amber eyes critical yet somehow without judgment. My gut contracts and face flushes and I stutter, catching myself from back peddling. It’s my typical self defense mechanism.

I take a deep breath and she lets the silence fall, though not uncomfortably. She is looking across the street and I can tell she’s considering this. She wants me to finish and she knows I want to say it all, but don’t know how. She knows I need this, though.

She won’t press the issue.

We both stare at the same light pole across the street, covered in faded neon colored signs half disintegrating from the recent winter, and I laugh under my breath. For now, we are distracted and the former tension ceases to exist. Even though the wind is still slightly biting, we’ve chosen to sit out on the patio with our drinks. I always vow to remember what she orders so I can surprise her with it the next time I see her. I never can. She is a creature of habit, taking solace in her lightly colored coffee with so-many creams and flavorings and, as hard as I try, I can never keep it straight in my head. I consider this overwhelming confusion over coffee options as the reason I never picked up the drinking habit, but in reality I know I find as much pleasure in the spicy hot tea I drink plain as she does her witches brew coffee concoctions. It is those reliable differences that I depend on, that I crave when I’ve spent too much time away.

She picks up her cup and holds it to her lips, fingers gripped tightly around the hot glass and lips curved gently over the rim, perched and waiting.

“It’s been a bad few months for you, yeah?” she says with her bottom lip resting delicately on the mug. The chair creaks as I tip back, air escaping my throat in a howl so triumphant it seems it had been held prisoner there for years and was only just let out to the light of day. I squeeze my eyes together and let the smile rest comfortably for a minute, feeling its yet unrealized foreignness.

“Self inflicted, I think. I’m getting there. I think I burned myself out and I’m just… trying to find my way back.” She nods at my confession and I nod reassuringly back.