Day 355 - Hello to Marvelous, Mangled Us
Dear N,
Here goes nothing.
And here goes everything.
Nothing because we are nothing.
Haven't been for 17 years.
We're not friends - we're specifically not friends.
By my own hand...and yours. We did this. We chose it.
But everything, because these years always held the memory of you.
And everything, because the marvelous, mangled "us" that existed so briefly changed the color of all that came before and after.
The "us" that still exists in my heart, is still the everything of my story.
Even as my fingers stumble over these keys, I feel the sharp sting of these synaptic remembrances, the grief elephant on my chest warning me not to feel this too much...because there's no place to go that I haven't already tried. Leathery lungs risk only shallow breaths, paper-thin heart gasping and thudding, I am the void holding a universe of you.
But the key word is "go."
Nothing and everything goes.
No-thing stays the same and every-thing changes.
I'm going here, to the heart of the story, to us...
I'm also letting go, of what I expected of myself and what I still expect from you sometimes...
Going is what's important here.
I got interrupted by a phone call from a fwb. It was good, in a way, because it jarred me from going too deep down the rabbit hole with this letter. Yeah, I do have fwbs. Can you imagine? Not the intensely serious 20-yr.-old you remember, I bet. Well, ok...actually, I only have one...and that's only because we don't mutually want more. Friends-with-benefits (fwb) is a little fucked up anyway. I mean, com'on, how many of us are only friends if sex is a real possibility?? Basically, it's just a more socially acceptable way for us to go about the whole "booty call" business.
Now that I think of it, you and I were basically fwbs. We never really dated either because I was stiff-arming you with the vow and the insistence that whatever time we spent together was "just friends." But you must be a sucker for a challenge because that only seemed to make you want me more.
Sometimes I wonder if I had been completely available would you have been into me the same way? Sometimes I wonder if I had not denied myself with the vow would you have been so enthralling for me? There are a lot of "what if" questions and believe me, I've wrestled with every one that I can think of. Regardless, you were the first to really get under my skin and break me down. I never fell so hard. And I've never been able to since - although I've tried, even to the point of embarrassment and regret.
Speaking of phone calls, remember the first time you called me? It must have been late September, the sky was a crisp cool blue and the leaves were turning into crunchy shades of brown, red, orange, and yellow. It was my second year at the bible college, but you were new that year. Your sister and I played basketball together and she was ecstatic that her big brother was...well,...getting his priorities right. I actually can't recall any specifics of you before "us," but I must've known that you were something of the wandering sheep in your family.
My first year at the school was tough, really tough. I was a music major which automatically put me in direct contact with the dreaded Mrs. A. That woman was so angry and filled with bitterness that she regularly cut her own hair shorter and shorter until she had nothing left to pick at except for the 200-odd students that came through the college. And I got a full dose of her on a daily basis. Dr. A always seemed decent enough as the president of the college, but I couldn't figure out why she so clearly had his god-fearing balls in her righteous fists. She's the perfect example of fundamentalism in full force. I didn't know it then, but she was the mirror image of my future self if I kept going the way I seemed determined to go. "If a little was good, more had to be the best..." Fortunately, you came along and fucked it all up - me, my best intentions, my inner compulsion for perfection, and of course, my vow to God.
You picked up the corded receiver of the phone hanging on the painted concrete wall of your dorm room and punched in the four digits assigned to my room. I was just leaving, but I answered. (I'm amazed to realize that none of us had cell phones yet!)
I don't remember exactly how you introduced yourself or if you pretended to assume that I, of course, knew who you were (which would be quite probable on your part), but I remember your New England swaggering charm and how easily we teased one another in that first conversation. Your intention was clear and I was immediately intrigued by your confidence. I laughed, but played coy, because, well, I knew about the vow and you didn't.
I hung up the phone and blithely pretended the phone call meant nothing as I trotted down the stairs to join my girlfriends. I was happy on that perfect transcendent evening and I had no idea that my heart had just been forever pierced by everything.
Here goes nothing.
And here goes everything.
Nothing because we are nothing.
Haven't been for 17 years.
We're not friends - we're specifically not friends.
By my own hand...and yours. We did this. We chose it.
But everything, because these years always held the memory of you.
And everything, because the marvelous, mangled "us" that existed so briefly changed the color of all that came before and after.
The "us" that still exists in my heart, is still the everything of my story.
Even as my fingers stumble over these keys, I feel the sharp sting of these synaptic remembrances, the grief elephant on my chest warning me not to feel this too much...because there's no place to go that I haven't already tried. Leathery lungs risk only shallow breaths, paper-thin heart gasping and thudding, I am the void holding a universe of you.
But the key word is "go."
Nothing and everything goes.
No-thing stays the same and every-thing changes.
I'm going here, to the heart of the story, to us...
I'm also letting go, of what I expected of myself and what I still expect from you sometimes...
Going is what's important here.
* * * * *
I got interrupted by a phone call from a fwb. It was good, in a way, because it jarred me from going too deep down the rabbit hole with this letter. Yeah, I do have fwbs. Can you imagine? Not the intensely serious 20-yr.-old you remember, I bet. Well, ok...actually, I only have one...and that's only because we don't mutually want more. Friends-with-benefits (fwb) is a little fucked up anyway. I mean, com'on, how many of us are only friends if sex is a real possibility?? Basically, it's just a more socially acceptable way for us to go about the whole "booty call" business.
Now that I think of it, you and I were basically fwbs. We never really dated either because I was stiff-arming you with the vow and the insistence that whatever time we spent together was "just friends." But you must be a sucker for a challenge because that only seemed to make you want me more.
Sometimes I wonder if I had been completely available would you have been into me the same way? Sometimes I wonder if I had not denied myself with the vow would you have been so enthralling for me? There are a lot of "what if" questions and believe me, I've wrestled with every one that I can think of. Regardless, you were the first to really get under my skin and break me down. I never fell so hard. And I've never been able to since - although I've tried, even to the point of embarrassment and regret.
My first year at the school was tough, really tough. I was a music major which automatically put me in direct contact with the dreaded Mrs. A. That woman was so angry and filled with bitterness that she regularly cut her own hair shorter and shorter until she had nothing left to pick at except for the 200-odd students that came through the college. And I got a full dose of her on a daily basis. Dr. A always seemed decent enough as the president of the college, but I couldn't figure out why she so clearly had his god-fearing balls in her righteous fists. She's the perfect example of fundamentalism in full force. I didn't know it then, but she was the mirror image of my future self if I kept going the way I seemed determined to go. "If a little was good, more had to be the best..." Fortunately, you came along and fucked it all up - me, my best intentions, my inner compulsion for perfection, and of course, my vow to God.
I don't remember exactly how you introduced yourself or if you pretended to assume that I, of course, knew who you were (which would be quite probable on your part), but I remember your New England swaggering charm and how easily we teased one another in that first conversation. Your intention was clear and I was immediately intrigued by your confidence. I laughed, but played coy, because, well, I knew about the vow and you didn't.
I hung up the phone and blithely pretended the phone call meant nothing as I trotted down the stairs to join my girlfriends. I was happy on that perfect transcendent evening and I had no idea that my heart had just been forever pierced by everything.
