Where I stood.

Please pause whatever is playing and play this video. Then, continue reading. 

Part 1

"I don't know how you do it", I said.

"Do what?" he replied, stoically. 

"Do this, all of this." I waved my hand, pointing to everything. "Living between a rock and a hard place."

Then he took a long drag on his Marlboro Red 100, and said something I'll never forget.

"There are good days, and there are bad days." 

Part 2

He was done running away. He was done looking for himself.

He was deep in regret, for having walked away.

He saw her in every sunrise, every sunset, and every mile of the road.

She was at the airport, at the truck stop, with him when he stopped to sleep after a long haul.

She was across the bar, in a brunette girl, strong and ambitious.

He told me he was going home. 

He had been wrong all along, he said.

Then he swallowed hard, as if to distract himself from a growing fear, looked at the clock, then the calendar. I could read his lips as he read "June, July, August...twenty ninth, thirtieth".

I asked him why he was doing it. Why he was going home, if it was such a long shot.

He said, "If there's a one percent chance that she'll forgive me, that she'll give me a shot at giving her everything, a one percent chance that part of her is still in love with me;

If there's a ninety nine percent chance that I'll move my life across the country only for her to break my heart and burn it;

If all the cards are stacked against me, and that she'll decide she's happy being safe, 

that she's happy without true magic, without adventure, and real passion,"

He took a shot of everclear and said,

"I'll take that chance."

And he will. 

And I will.

The Oilfield Romantic