“Warning Signs" is a song composed by Coldplay released on their album A Rush Of Blood To The Head.
It’s funny because this song doesn’t necessarily resonate with my own life in the broader sense however it sheds light on a few specific experiences and allows me to get a better perspective today on those events. Lately I find my thoughts always coming back to him. They’re always featuring him. But the truth is I think about him a lot. The "him" I'm referring to is the greatest friend I've ever had. I met him ten years ago when I was eleven, and he was twelve. I remember when I first met him. We were in the same Computer Basics class, he approached me, his eyes were glowing, he had that smile that turned into a grin that made me melt like an ice cube on a hot summer’s day. He pursued me as though he was being drawn to me, uncontrollably demanding my attention and eventual friendship. I’d never felt so comfortable or so at home with anyone in my whole entire life. I fell in love with him at eleven despite myself. I didn’t even know what perfect love was, I was a child and at that time I hadn't read a single book about it. I couldn’t even fathom what it could have been until I met him. He became my best friend, and as time passed our worlds blurred together and he became everything. I loved him. I loved his brown eyes, his dark hair, his freckles. He had so many freckles that covered his entire face, I wanted to spend forever within inches of those freckles. I loved his button down shirts hanging loose over his beige khaki’s ending at his white and black tennis shoes. He was beautiful. And to this day I still don't understand why he chose me out of all the gals in this world. It was as though it were predetermined, as though me and him together was our destiny. He was mine, and I was his. Nothing else mattered.
I haven’t seen him in almost two years, but he always manages to sneak into my thoughts. The song "Warning Signs" by Coldplay fascinates me because it makes me think of him. When I first met him and like a thief in the night he stole my heart. My soul recognized its match with him and my heart had found its home. There were no warning signs, no red flags, or move forward with caution signs. It was as though I was at the edge of a giant cliff looking into a slow moving ocean below me. And there he was sitting in a boat waiting for me and ignoring the beware for rocks at the bottom of the cliff signs, I fell right off that giant cliff. Eyes wide open, excited, nervous, scared, and for those seconds while I was falling straight toward him, I realized I was flying. I was flying through the cool autumn air. In those moments the world slowed down and all I saw was him. This song called “Warning Signs” hits home with me because even without the warning signs I never made it safely towards home with him. By the time I descended upon his boat, he had started to drift away. And before I reached the cold silent dark waters below me, a swift wind picked me up and carried me far away. Maybe we were to young to fully understand, or terrified of what we had stumbled upon, even now I can't fully scramble threw it all, I guess that's part of falling in love. Everything gets blissfully blurred you can't separate up from down, chaos from reason. Ever since that time, that experience, the one time I fell completely oblivious to the warning signs towards perfect love, towards my home, I haven’t allowed myself to get within 100 feet of a cliff. After that experience all I ever saw were warning signs. A steel cage built itself around me. I understand now that this was the reason I took distance from him, many years later. All I've seen since are warning signs.
It took me ten years to finally understand all of this. And here I am, an adult women, devastated over the many years he and I never got to share together. I have heard that years can’t measure a life, it’s the moments that have the power too last eternities. Today I hold onto those memories, and the moments we shared, with faith that the next few decades will be ours to share, and even lifetimes after this one. I’ve lived a good life so far and I’ve got many years ahead of me, but of all the things I’ve done thus far in my life I regret just one thing, and that is not having the courage to break through that steel wall I built around myself, so I could spend this last decade learning, loving and surviving this crazy world with him.