It's all there was....
just time.
Lots of it.
More than we could imagine.
More than we thought we would ever need.
Nothing but time, day after day, week after week,
year after year...

I remember 5th grade, then 6th grade...
I remember discovering what it felt like to press
my lips to the lips of a pretty girl,
and all the emotions and feelings that stirred up
inside me...

I remember when I discovered that I didn't have to put up with the schoolyard bully, and that if
you hit him hard right off, he generally left you alone after that. Bullies didn't like fighters.

I remember one time when I found my first breast...
I was so scared...
so frightened...
I was worried that if I did or said the wrong thing,
that it would go away forever.
Those were innocent times.

Good times, but innocent times.

Junior High - a whole 'nuther world.
Big time now.
I was the new guy on the block,
and everyone knew it. I could feel it.
Scared again.
7th damn grade, and I was scared again.

Got blindsided by a girl's cousin when I said
the wrong thing, apparently, and I didn't even know what I said to earn it.
Then he ran and hid in the boys' room 'til I went away.

Army Brat.
New York. Kentucky. South Carolina. Hawaii. North Carolina. New York again. Louisiana. Man, that was the most home to me - Louisiana.
My folks and my friends are all buried in Louisiana. My life is, too. My memories...
all back down there.
Then it was my turn to wear a uniform... Fort Polk, Fort Ben, West Berlin, Fort Riley, Bear Cat, Dong Tam, Fort Polk again, then Hakata...
I think I went around the world about twice, all
total. More fun without my old man around, though.

Time. Lots of time. Plenty of time. Lots of things, and all of it in time. Little pieces of time here and there, like bubbles that float to the top, you see little pictures in them, bits of things that you remember, then the bubbles pop...

And you sit here one day, thinking about all those times, and you wonder if you could ever make any sense of it enough to try to tell anyone
else about it all... and you realize, sadly, that
likely no one would have the interest or the patience to listen to you, anyway, so you just lean back and take another sip of your coffee...

You think that maybe you'll write about it some time. Some time when you have the time to write about it.