In the Wee Small Hours

For Friday, September 23, 2011

In the wee small hours of the morning
While the whole wide world is fast asleep
You lie awake and think about the boy
And never ever think of counting sheep

When your lonely heart has learned its lesson
You'd be his if only he'd call
In the wee small hours of the morning
That's the time you miss him most of all

Although this Frank Sinatra song is tough to compete with, it is Carly Simon’s voice that I first heard singing these lyrics. Her album, My Romance, is one of my favorites, in fact. Whenever I am up late and the house is so still, these lyrics come to me.

The boy...a lonely heart...learning its lesson...the wee small hours of the morning...the time you miss him most of all.

Oh, hold the phone. Spread no rumors. There isn’t a certain someone I pine for. But yes, in those quiet moments that come every so often, there is someone I think of, someone I wonder about... hoping he’s doing okay, thinking of the last few times we saw one another and talked. He was someone who, years back, got under my skin in a complicated way. Of all the people in my life, he is one of a select few who truly challenged me. I miss him.

It’s amazing to me how every now and then, a person comes into my life, making an unbelievably intense impression, only to depart, never to be seen or heard from again. I think on this at times, wondering what it is about my life or my personality that has me experience this. I think it may be that, in life, most of the time people are so wound up in their own selves, in their own daily lives, that we just don’t stop, look, and listen to other people. Not the way we should or could anyhow. We don’t get out of our own heads long enough to stare deeply into another’s eyes, to see who is there. This is how he challenged me. He caught me off guard because he not only took time to see me, the real me, he took time to find ways to have ME see ME.

I learned so much from our friendship. And in the wee small hours of the morning, while the whole wide world is fast asleep, I lie awake and think about the man. And my heart knows it has learned its lesson. I should have had more courage to stare back into his eyes, to get under his skin, to have challenged him.

Then again, maybe I did that. Maybe that’s why he’s no longer here.

Hey you. Thanks...for everything. I still miss you.