Ten years ago … karaoke!

I love to sing! I do it mostly at the top of my lungs in a sealed car so no one can hear me (or I guess while I put puzzles together), but I love to sing. I’m not awesome, but I’m decent and it’s one thing I really enjoy. So when I got a call on Wednesday night from Clarissa’s roommate to see if I wanted to go do karaoke with a group of other people I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, I really wanted to do karaoke; on the other hand, I didn't want to send this girl mixed signals. So, since she said there was going to be a group I asked her who else would be going. When she mentioned Clarissa I was all in. So on Thursday night we stuffed six of us into my roommate’s sedan and headed to karaoke. That was a fun night. I think everyone got up and sang at least once. I’m pretty sure my song of choice was “Stellar” by Incubus (not a good karaoke choice) and I got to spend some time talking and getting to know Clarissa better, as much as I could discretely anyway. The major development of the night was on the car ride home. I mentioned that there were six of us in a five seat sedan. So on the way back this meant my two roommates were sitting in the front and I was sitting in the back against the driver’s side door. There was one girl in the middle and Clarissa was sitting on her roommate’s lap on the other side of the car. Since my shoulders didn't seem to fit in such a small car I had my arm up in the space under the back windshield and Clarissa had her arm up there as well. I remember starting to playfully flick her hand, just kind of messing around having a good time, but I quickly noticed that if my hand lingered on hers she didn't pull away. As I'm writing this I can still feel the excitement and electricity of that first touch.We drove the rest of the way home kind of discreetly holding hands across the back seat and then my roommates and I dropped the girls off and went home. Looking back on this, it seems painfully awkward, maybe immature adolescent excitement, but touching Clarissa’s hand that night gave me hope that I might actually have a chance with this beautiful girl who was clearly out of my league (still is). I think that was also the first time that Clarissa considered me at all romantically. 

It's amazing how at the start of a relationship at every little touch sparks fly and electricity is everywhere. I was thinking the other day that I wish I still felt those sparks every time I touched Clarissa's hand, but then I realized that sparks don't fly anymore because we're not like connecting the positive and negative terminals of a car battery anymore, we're more like a complete circuit. When I'm with Clarissa I'm complete, she gives me energy and she helps me be the best version of me. When she's gone I can feel that my circuit is incomplete and all I want to do is get back to her. 

PS I recently came across some pictures from that night and will revise this post to include those when I get home from my current business trip.