Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

I realized I was walking away.

It took just a few seconds for the whole sidewalk muse to occur. Time had seemed to stop, yet once again, when I had to make a choice.

It took me only those few seconds to realize that this girl from across the street was looking at me and wondering if we belonged to the same side... and that my best friend was definitely not in the process of multiplying me with his ax ... and also to muse on a choice that I was making.

I was walking away.

I wondered how many times I would do this. How many times would I feel something unique and choose to walk away? How many times would I drown myself in humor and avoid the unique? How many times would I say to myself that what is unique is not what is special?

Choices. It has made me what I am. It has made all of us what they we are. If at a certain point in life each of us had chosen differently, if we had chosen the alternate, what would have happened?

Different choices, different paths, different futures.

But I was making the same choice, I was taking the same path, and I was hoping the future wiould be different.

I was walking away.

She was beautiful. While it takes more than 15 paragraphs to create humor in something as unique as the feeling I was feeling and to facilitate my taking the same path again ... it will take me just one word to destroy all that and describe her in the best possible way I can. She was beautiful.

We are not in a world where we can just go to a person and say, " ... and I believe that you believe too. Just like I do. Well, where do we go from here?" But we are not in a world, where we can just begin a relationship in the middle ... well, not yet. Maybe someday. But not yet.

Right now, all relationships begin at the beginning, even if there are these moments that are unique. This moment was unique because I could not categorize her in words beyond the word "beautiful." She just had the ability to create a moment and make me feel unique, as I had the ability to find her beautiful just with the way she held that moment with me.

And I was walking away.

Did I mention I was walking way? Forgive me if I didn't, but I sure was walking away.

I can see my grandmothers shaking their heads with their usual disapproval. "The ape in the family, and he's crawling away."

But I had a reason. I was making a choice. The choice between the "inevitable she" and the girl with a moment.

The inevitable "she" in my life is something I have not been able to shrug off easily. How many of us have, anyway? But what have made us different from one another are the choices that we have made.

In a unique moment, where the simple crossing of street and a brief glance at a girl causes you to muse and imagine the possibilities of a future with this girl standing at the other end ... just standing ... relaxed and composite ... intelligent and humorous ... ... just beautiful, I have made a similar choice, time and again.

I have walked away.

I haven't regretted it as yet. But I have mused.

A moonlit dream of a presence, whose remote possibility of just an "existence" has me shaking to my roots, whose yearning has made taught me to love the only way I possibly can, whose potential to love the only way she can, whose belief has ... well, never mind.

I'm a hopeless romantic, some might say, with my grandmothers nodding their heads, vigorously, in the background. I declare I'm not. I firmly believe that I'm just a crazy fool.

If I were a hopeless romantic, I would have fallen in love over and over again. Also, I don't care whether "she" exists. Strange paradoxical statements? Contrasting beliefs? Confused mind? Duh? No. I don't care because even if I knew that she doesn't exist, I would still believe ... and this makes me a hopeless fool.

And every time I've walked away.

I'm talking about choices. I've chosen my path, and unless I choose otherwise, I'll have these unique moments, and I'll walk away. If I choose to hold on to that unique moment, and arrive at the middle of a relationship, I cannot imagine the possibilities. Can anybody?

But I have chosen to imagine the possibilities of what might possibly be impossible.

Her.

I have had very few moments as these in my life. Each was entirely unique in itself, and each promised endless possibilities. Someday I might just walk up to one of these moments and find that alternative future, or I just might choose to live by my choice.

But I have mused. If I had walked up to this girl, and if she understood when I said, " ... and I know you believe too," I would have a future entirely different from what I've chosen for myself. Would that be that bad? Is it possible that it can be really good, and that I'm just walking away? What if I realize a few years later that this alternate future might have been the best thing for me? Can I come back to change that? What's wrong with these alternate futures, anyway? Everybody's doing it in his or her own way, and seems to be really enjoying it.

But then, everybody is just making a choice. I have too. If I were a hopeless romantic, I would try these alternate futures and enjoy every one of them. I am, on the other hand, just a cautious old fool, and I have made my choice.