4:44AM

Mood: Content
Music: Oil and Water - Incubus
Date/Time: Monday 24th August, 2009/9:51AM

"But you're neither friend nor foe though I can't seem to let you go.
Something always brings me back to you.
It never takes too long." 
- Gravity by Sara Bareilles

Yesterday morning my friend's mother asked me how my birthday was so far.
We had just ordered our meal, and were settling down at a table in the middle of the rustic building. I sat next to her, with a drink in my left hand and my right hand on her left leg and smiled.
I told her the night before wasn't so good, but the morning started off at 4:44AM.


Even as I'm writing this now, I have to smile again.
I was fast asleep, but was awoken by a knock on my door. I groggily got up - not even remembering it was my birthday...I was worried it was an emergency when I saw the time.
"Who is it?"
"It's me."

He always says that. Those simple words: it's me. And I get butterflies. It amazes me how after all these years, that even when we haven't spoken in awhile: I still get those butterflies.
It's like the first time our eyes met across that crowded room: I saw him, he saw me. I saw him looking at me. He saw me looking at him. And we both smiled.
That's how those butterflies feel each time: like the first time I was aware that his smile made me smile. And I uttered those words: "who is this guy?"

He stood outside my door, his hand covering a single candle standing in a slice of my favourite chocolate cheesecake. I love that cake: smooth, with a mouthful of chocolate pieces and rum in each bite, slathered with butter cream frosting.

As I wiped the sleep from my eyes, I had to smile. He looked so cute, standing there and obviously exhausted coming from work.
He told me he couldn't spend the night, and that he loved me.
I held back my hair as he held up the cake for me to blow out the candle.
He kissed me and told me to go back to bed.

As I told my friend's mother the story, she smiled a look that said: "young love".
What I didn't tell her was that I could still taste his kiss.
And what I'd never tell her is that this love wasn't young or fleeting. Our love is one of those great loves: an experience so life changing that you never forget the person or how every moment together made you feel. It's a love that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
And unless you've experienced it for yourself, you will read these words and shake your head in either disbelief or cynicism.
Soul mates don't always end up together - but sometimes that doesn't matter if you enjoy every moment together.

4:44AM isn't a bad way to wake up on the morning of your 24th birthday - not when a man you love is standing at your door with a look and a gesture that reminds why you fell in love with him in the first place.
4:44AM is the perfect way to wake up to a moment that is so intense and unrehearsed that it warms your heart and soothes your soul. And has you smiling a smile so genuine that you count your blessings and forget to make a wish as you close your eyes and blow out the candle on your birthday cake.

Love,
Ally.

Photo Credit: 4:44AM; Sunday, 23rd, August, 2009