It was the day before we were set to meet. The day before our “first date”. It seems like so long ago now, and at the same time, it seems like it could have been yesterday. We texted and traded songs off-and-on all day, with very few pauses. We started sending songs at the same time, or when there were breaks in the conversation, we’d say something to each other at the same time. In stereo.

My nerves ebbed and flowed throughout the day. Those teenage butterflies burst into flight every time my phone chimed. I was excited and scared, nervous and stunned that this was all happening. All that said, though, there was an undercurrent of hope in all of it. There was something here that seemed destined. I knew we were already connected. I knew, too, that I had already fallen hard. I hoped that just maybe he had, too. It felt like we both had.

I kept imagining what it would be like to finally meet him. To see him face-to-face. To talk to each other in the same room. To not have a screen and a collection of songs to lean on. To risk that he might not like me in-person. That I might not be what he expected or wanted. That the attraction that seemed strong between us wouldn’t be there when he saw me.

My insecurities rattled chains throughout my body. They echoed in my head and kept my nerves dancing. I felt like the ghosts of Christmas decided to give Scrooge a break, and taunt and haunt me. I kept telling them to scram. To get lost. To shut the hell up. But they kept on and on and on.

But we kept on and on and on, too. Those conversations kept me breathing, wishing, hoping, and wanting. I wanted so bad for us to be an US. I felt so strongly that we had the potential to be an amazing US. In so many ways we felt like an US already.

“You and I” by Wilco and Leslie Feist

“You and I.
I think we can take it.
All the good with the bad,
make something that no one else has.”

Thursday was the longest day. Thursday night the longest night. I would never have made it through without the songs we traded, and the conversation we shared.

I was breathing. Barely.
Mostly, I was holding my breath and wishing.