How It Would Be.

Running shoes in the daytime, something familiar and cozy. Not out to impress, just a desire for practicality. Well-fitting jeans with a nice coffee coloured belt and a cute buckle, perhaps a goomba or koopa troopa, just to let us know you're a gamer. A nice shirt, no print. Something soft, probably from Roots. Pierced ears with small diamond studs, actual diamonds probably a gift on your 16th birthday.

One sibling, a brother perhaps. Parents would be still together, still in love. Grew up in the city, but likes life a little slower, country blood in a metropolitan heart. Time spent talking about things you're passionate about, making others passionate about them too. No TV, but not too much reading. Sitting on the sofa with a record playing, mid nineties. Likes all music, but doesn't know a lot about any one band in particular.

Likes to cook, loves to eat. Feel good about the way you look, lives responsibly. Likes wine, enjoys a beer. Likes time apart, cherishes time together. Sleep with the window open so you can hear the wind at night and the birds in the morning. Positive, but not saccharine; honest, but tactful. Listens to me, but maintains a separate opinion.

Doesn't understand cellphones, doesn't want to. Sarcastic wit, never cruel. Spends time each day doing something to become a better person. "Gets" my friends, enjoys their company. Warm dinners, warm conversation, warm nights. Cries during the credits to sad movies.

Sun dress, white lace, white heels. Dinner out.

No kids.

Save up some money for a trip, visit Thailand, Laos, Japan, China.

Ireland. Follow your roots, find your past. Where you're from is as important as where you're going.

Pack up in the middle of the night, leave a note:

"People like us understand the fleetingness of everything. The sun sets, the tide recedes and the leaves fall."

I nod, understandingly. It will be the last missive between us.

When asked where you went, I'll shrug and say, "Returned to the thoroughfare of a life before me. So lucky was I that they stopped along the way to ask me for directions."