Finally, I Think

I met him in a small bar half a block from his apartment. My friend was involved with his friend, and she had some sort of question she wanted answered, so she went to ask Chris. I went along. One of my high school friends was there, and wasted, blathering on and on and on about his steroid use while the friend who brought me there asked Chris her questions. She was at a table facing him, back toward me. I was one table behind them, also facing him.

I caught his eye, and it was like you could see the crackle in the air. While I was pretending to listen to drunken foolishness, my eyes kept finding his and we eventually started making goofy faces at each other. After we left, I asked my friend about him. She kind of wrinkled her nose, but said she'd ask her guy about him. Her guy responded that he normally wouldn't set anyone up with Chris, but if I was of rather questionable moral fiber, he'd make an exception. I'm trying to ignore how Todd should've stuck to his guns.

A few weeks before I first saw Chris, I had landed in one of those wacko situations I was so adept at finding. I woke up naked, not knowing where I was or who was lying next to me. Instead of kicking my ass out for a walk of shame, the guy wanted more. Huh. Turned out he was pretty good. Also turned out he needed to leave to sign away parental rights to his infant son, as his 17 year old ex-girlfriend was getting ready to move and her grandparents had convinced him he needed to do so in order for the baby to be enrolled in day care, and then later, school. Poor guy believed that shit and signed because he actually cared for the baby's well-being. Anyway, I stayed there while he signed away his firstborn son, and fucked him again when he got back.

I was starting to sober up, and realized it was like 6PM, so I walked the mile or so to find my car, fully expecting to never see the guy again. That's not how it turned out. I somehow allowed myself to get sucked into his messy life. He wasn't a dick, but he was, um, not generally suited for daily living. Most people would call him a loser, but I feel guilty about even saying that much. He was kind and caring, and all those years of watching porn constantly had taught him some nice tricks. He had some pretty serious anxiety problems that, combined with his lack of a job, meant he rarely went out. Somehow I found myself agreeing to visit him before or after the bar. One time I even skipped the bar and brought my daughter over to play with his daughter, who was the same age. We ended up spending the night, and after the girls went to sleep, we drank while playing board games. I fell and gave myself an elbow full of rug burn from hell and didn't even have sex that night. I vaguely remember ranting about that.

The rug burn night happened several nights before I ended up going on a group date with Chris. I had spent the night at the girl who knew Chris' house, and had brought the accidental almost boyfriend along. She got a call inviting us to a drive in movie with a group of people, of whom Chris was the only single one. I took Jay home, and ended up getting back during the three hours a year my parents' house is inaccessible, thanks to a firetruck parade. I had to call another friend to come get me and take me to the mall for clothes to wear. (He bought them too.) Then my friend gave me a ride to the drive in, where everyone else was already waiting.

Eh, I'm done now.

Has It Really Been 15 Years?

I'm in shock, really. A large part of me simply can't fathom that this is my fifteen year bar anniversary. I never expected to see five years of bar time, let alone fifteen. Not that I've seen too much bar time in the past, oh, too many years, but . . . I also never expected my friend whose birthday preceded mine by a day to have only been alive for the first five bar anniversaries.

I had two goals for my first bar night -- I wanted to drink so much I puked, and I wanted to have a one night stand. I puked all over my one night stand's bathroom, and wondered aloud the next morning if I had even bothered to ask his name. (I had, and apparently repeated it numerous times in a horrible Spanish accent for no discernible reason. He was white and his name was Christian.). I found that my clothes were caked in mud and I had no idea how to get home.

"Don't you remember falling into a mud pile? Several times."

"Your friends live about two blocks in that direction."

Oh. OK.

That's just the tip of the iceberg concerning a night that began with me swaying on the corner near the bar, waiting for the magical Cinderella time that allowed me to enter the doors to heaven. I got distracted by some cracks in the sidewalk and walked in around 12:15. My friends and I were putting together pieces of that night nearly six years after the fact, and bars in PA close at 2AM. Even that is only a small indication of how ridiculous the evening was.

When I look back to those days, I long for the freedom I enjoyed. But I wasn't really free, and I never even felt like I was. I think maybe I miss having such close friends in close proximity and readily available. I miss not realizing getting wasted and doing stupid shit gets old, and watching others do so gets old even quicker. I miss the two block radius that held my world. I miss always having something to do.

Perhaps since my 21st birthday has had so many anniversaries, I can now see that there are just as many things I don't miss. No one who drinks that much, that often is in a great mental state. She may pretend to be, but she just can't be. Escapism isn't necessary if you're happy with the world you inhabit.

So, I'll try not to dwell on the party week I used to celebrate for my birthday. I'll try not to cry while spending my night wondering how long it will take the for gurgling gas I hear coming from the boring ass body next to me to reach my nose. I've done both in the past, today I'll choose neither.

Now I Remember

Now I remember why I stopped writing. I don't have much of interest, even to me, going on anymore. I have a lot of barely suppressed annoyance and a lot of compromising on my part. I can keep things on a pretty even keel if I expect nothing and focus on living now. Every now and then I slip up, but not nearly as often as I used to. Unfortunately, none of this lends itself very well to writing anything even slightly compelling.

I could write about how I repeat 3 phrases all day, every day, and how much I'd give to never have to say, "Get your hair out of your mouth.", "Leave your penis alone." and "Stop teasing the dog." ever again. I could discuss how annoying it is to have most of the qualities I liked about a certain individual I live with disappear, seemingly daily. I can now understand why my Dad may have gotten stuck with my Mom. I never really believed him that she didn't eat like an animal when he met her, but, hey, there's karma kicking me in the ass, again, apparently in an attempt to get me to open my fucking mouth while I chew too. I'm no saint, not by a long shot, and I'm probably not all that easy to live with, but damn it, I've always been a picky eater, slob and bitch. I haven't increased my slack jawed TV viewing thousandfold though. Yeah, sure, I still refuse to close the bathroom door, but guess what? It's that "still" part that makes a difference. If, say, I started leaving it open within the last year or so, fine, bitch away, but there's never been any decent length of time where it was different.

Oooh, I know! I could talk about my sex life!

I don't have one.

Hmm, that didn't fill much space, did it? I could detail the failed attempts I've made to change that, including doing the fucking dishes every day, since dirty dishes apparently have a horrible adverse effect on libido. Oh, wait, nope, clean dishes don't change a thing. Hmmm, how about I try to be nicer? Nah, that doesn't work either. Oh, I know, how about we agree to go out and do our own thing and shut up about it? Nope. Just a no on that one. You'd think when a person refuses a marriage proposal, with the lack of adequate sex given as the reason, you'd either leave or try really hard to fix it. Not the case around these parts. Probably karma evening out all those fun years I once thoroughly enjoyed, several of them with the person I finally stopped taking back when I met Mr. No-Interest. Just as a note, if someone really sucks in the beginning, it's perfectly fucking fine to call it off, cuz chances are, it's not going to change. Better to feel shallow and rotten for a little while than to end up feeling that way for a long ass time.

Yeah, see, I've done a decent job of burying these things the past two years. I thought maybe it was because of that whole murdered love thing, and acceptance that life is not perfect, no one owes me shit, and nothing is going to compare to what I lost, but maybe it was just because I made myself stop thinking about it.

Maybe I should think about a job. Too bad that won't work. He works a different schedule every week and I don't have a babysitter, ever and I haven't worked in ten years, so I know better than to expect to find a job with "normal" daytime hours. *sigh*

This lovely piece brought to you, in part, by bitterness over waking up choking and unable to breathe combined with a lack of health insurance because I refused to marry someone whose dick doesn't live up to my standards. Sure, he could fill out some paperwork and hand it in at work and I'd get it for FREE, by the beginning of the next month, just like he and the kid do, but, really, why would you do that when it's more fun to passive aggressively remind me that I don't want to marry him? I already knew that, thanks, no need to remind me. Oh wait, then I guess it means I'm being punished for wanting a sex life. So be it.

Some More

I've left out the part where John and I actually did have sex, twice, mostly because it was rather bizarre, and kinda had very little to do with our overall time spent together. Honestly, I only have a vague recollection of those nights, and can sort of place them in a general time frame. I don't even remember intimate details, which is truly strange to me, since I can very clearly picture him and hear his words in my head.

The first time was one of those nights he'd walked farther in the opposite direction of his house, just to call me to take him home. We were literally separated by a mountain at that time, he lived on one side, I lived on the other. Granted, it's not the largest mountain around, but still . . . I got in my car and drove him home. Since I was completely freaking sober, (which may be why it's harder to picture things precisely, I'm backward like that) I remember some confusion as to whether or not he wanted me to stay or just drop him off. He was completely wasted and decided to show me just how much he wanted me to stay. Again, I don't really remember how it went, probably because I do remember feeling horrible that we had spent so much time together without having sex and I was sober and should have at least tried to stop his drunk ass, but I really, really didn't want to stop him. It was a very strange feeling, and also karma biting my ass hard.

We never really talked about that night. He mentioned that he needed more than just a condom, so I bought a bunch of spermicidal shit, etc., brought it over and left it there without saying a fucking word about it. When it was already too late, our mutual friend told me John was probably talking about me going on the pill. *forehead slap* Duh. Chances are, he thought I understood what he meant and chose not to do a damn thing about it. In reality, had he said explicitly what he meant and wanted, I would've gone to the Dr. that day.

The other time we had sex, the situation was reversed. I was piss ass wasted, literally, and he was sober. I don't even know how I ended up at his apartment. I can guess I drove there after the bar, but I'm really not sure. I know he felt bad because I was so drunk and he thought he should've stopped me because he was sober. I don't even know what time of year this happened. In fact, all I really know is I pissed his bed afterward, and left without saying a word or offering to help clean his sheets and mattress. How sweet of me. I know him well enough to know he thought he deserved my drunken incontinence.

We didn't mention that night. Shocking, isn't it?

We kept missing and fumbling our chances for a long, long time.

Four or five years after he graduated, he moved several states away. Instead of a one hour trip, it was a 3.5 hour trip to visit him. We met up in NYC one day with a mutual friend and the guy I was seeing. Not long after, I made the trip to his new town. We went out drinking with another of my closest friends from college. When we got back to his apartment, John mentioned that he would sleep on the sofa. I told him to get in bed. We talked for awhile, and he started to kiss me. I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life when I stopped him by saying, "If I thought you'd touch me when you were sober, I would never, ever even think of stopping you." He said, "Aw, come on, you don't really mean that, do you?" and I apologized. The next morning I kept waiting for him to prove me wrong, but he didn't, so I cut my trip short and went home. That was the last time I saw him, although we did stay in touch for a few more years. He moved to the south and bought his first house. We talked about me visiting, but I could never make it happen. One year when I called to wish him a happy birthday, his number had been disconnected, and no one I know has any idea where he is.

Sometimes The Reason Is You

I honestly don't know why John and I never ended up really together. Well, maybe that's not true. I suspect that John was simply smart enough to realize how much I needed to grow up, and also smart enough to know that it would be better for him if I chose to do so on my own. It was kind of like waiting for Godot.

He put up with a lot of shit that I can see now must have hurt him. I'm not sure if I imagined my situations didn't affect him because he had never made any definite steps toward a relationship, or if I was simply too wrapped up in my own pain and needed him too much to keep some things to myself. I suppose it doesn't matter, both "reasons" boil down to the simple fact that I was selfish and immature. Trust that karma is, indeed, a bitch and I have been duly repaid for my actions.

I've done way more than my share of stupid things, in fact, I may have done several people's share of stupid things, but I'm OK with most of that. One thing I'm not OK with was my repeated, completely clueless denial that John needed things for himself too. In turn, this became my repeated denial of him, and I honestly and truly never saw it that way. Going back to that place and trying to figure out what the fuck was going on in that beer soaked brain of mine won't change the past. I get how ridiculous and contradictory and self-destructive I was, I'm pretty sure that's enough.

It never occurred to me then how lucky I was, and how much he really loved me. I knew he did, just because I knew, but I never considered it fully. John sat on a chair in the middle of a crowd of standing people, head resting in a large stained glass bowl in his lap, glasses askew, picking his head up only to slur, "Megan, you know I love you, right?" I laughed, ruffled his hair and said that I did. Then I left, taking some guy I didn't know along with me. The next day John had to listen to the guy telling the story of how I accidentally called his girlfriend while pressing myself against him. I never considered how shitty my actions must have made John feel, and I'm pretty sure he realized I possessed that ridiculous personality defect.

Time and time again, I dumped my personal drama in his lap because I felt safe with him. He knew me well, gave good advice, and didn't blow smoke up my ass. If I was being an idiot, he told me. Unfortunately, he never told me that I was being an idiot about him. Well, not that I heard and processed anyway. It's quite possible he tried. After he graduated and moved, I made semi-regular visits to him, mostly when I desperately needed him and I was in shit way over my head. For the first three to four years after John graduated, I dated the same guy. We'll ignore the details of that particular fireworks show, save one. When the dating fiasco spanning several years began, I was in the habit of sharing a bed with, well, just about anyone. This turned out in the expected manner maybe a quarter of the time, but many, many nights were spent simply sleeping next to someone. My then boyfriend politely requested that I change that particular habit. I agreed, with two exceptions noted, John being one of them, even though he no longer lived in the area and I rarely saw him. That's just how much he was a part of me, you know, in my own twisted way.

I'm losing this now, I'll try to find it again. :)

Birds

We didn't have many rules then, but the sound of birds chirping to announce a new day was always a sign to quit drinking and go to bed. It didn't matter if we were in the middle of pushing shopping carts full of drunks down the steep alley next to the house, balancing on walkway edging singing "Me And My Shadow", or simply sitting on the front porch bench, my head in his lap, talking. Sometimes we'd steal a morning paper from the bundle dropped on the opposite side of the street. Other times we'd head inside to pass out on the filthy sofas lining the huge living room. My favorite times were when he'd look at me, shake his head, almost grin and say "Let's go" in a voice feigning resignation. A few times he even accidentally added "home" to the end of his statement. I'd grab his hand and swing it gleefully between us like an over-excited child as we drunkenly navigated our way down the steep hill, toward his apartment. He'd mutter and grumble while trying not to smile as he looked at me through the corner of his eye. I drove the two blocks more often than is prudent to admit. We'd stumble inside and throw ourselves on his bed, where we'd sleep, lacking even a kiss goodnight, with only a few rare exceptions to the routine.

One of those exceptions occurred on a night where I was so far on his side, butt pushed toward him, that he had no choice but to put his arm around me. He told me years later that he was just trying to avoid being pushed off his own bed. Unfortunately for him, when I stayed with him often, we talked about everything except us, so I took his arm around me that night as a sign he liked having my butt sticking as far toward him as possible. I spent many nights consciously pushing my butt closer to him, in hopes of recreating the feel of his arm around me as I slept. Poor John. Surely my drunk ass snored and farted all morning,(beer is not my friend while I'm sleeping, or so I've heard) but he never said a word about that.

We didn't always end up sleeping chastely next to each other after drinking, sometimes we were sober. Occasionally he'd stay in for a night or two, and I'd call him, asking if he wanted company. He always said "No, but you're welcome to come over anyway." So I'd grab a book and head to his apartment. I still stayed, we still didn't touch. I was probably more obnoxious with my butt pushing while sober. All of this may sound as if John didn't want me there, but I'm 99.9% sure that wasn't the case most of the time. He bought me a toothbrush, maybe just to get me to stop using one of his, but probably not. (Yeah, ick, gross, yeah, yeah, I was wasted every time I did that.) When he did his grocery shopping, he stocked up on the two foods he knew I would eat -- frozen pizza and chicken fingers. He called me several times, asking for a ride home, having walked farther to use the phone to call me than his apartment was from the bar.

Despite how it probably sounds, despite how it turned out between us, I know he loved me. Everyone else knew it too. John liked to say that he had social skills, he just chose not to use them. He rarely greeted people with more than a grunty nod and half wave from wherever he was standing. One of his older friends started freaking out one night when I walked into the room and John quickly walked over to greet me with a smile. His friend kept going on and on about how he had never seen John smile like that as a greeting, let alone walk over to greet a person. Another friend told me it was obvious to all the guys that John and I were in a relationship, wether we knew it or not. I made some smart ass comment about not getting laid, or doing anything else for that matter. The guy I was talking to enjoyed having a
reputation as a male slut. He looked at me and said that sometimes there was a whole lot more to being in a relationship than getting laid, and John and I obviously shared something like that. Years later, two pretty serious boyfriends who met John asked why he and I weren't together. The only answer I've ever had was "I don't know."

To be continued (maybe) . . .

Seconds

A couple years ago, a childhood friend's mother was in a terrible car accident, where she was the only person, out of four people involved, able to walk away from the scene. Two people left the scene in body bags, and the other person was airlifted to a trauma center. My friend's mom had quite literally been seconds away from death, three times throughout the ordeal. The man driving the wrong way on the highway came upon two cars driving side by side, he swerved into the lane, and woman, next to her. She was also hit, but drove onto the side of the road, and jumped out her passenger door, just missing more backlash and parts flying outside her driver's side door. She also had an open window and a lit cigarette in hand, which she clutched instinctively, never once considering the gas from two ruined cars spilling onto the roadway. Instead of being amazed by how right some seemingly tiny things went in her favor, keeping her alive, she lamented the fact that she shouldn't have been in that area at all. A series of petty, but kind of unusual, happenings had conspired to bring her there.

As I heard "I (she) shouldn't have even been there!" time and time again, I was reminded of Dante in Clerks whining "I'm not even supposed to be here tooodaaaayyy." repeatedly. No celebration of the fact that she was lucky as fuck to be alive, no praising her precious god for saving her life so she could do better things with herself, nothing of the sort was occurring in the conversations I heard. Granted, I didn't hear every conversation, but . . .

I almost got angry. I almost fell into the "holy shit, what bad luck that she was there" thinking surrounding me. Almost, almost, almost. I almost missed a very important lesson I had been missing for years. The truth of the matter is that each and every one of us could die before the end of this sentence. Shit happens, and it often happens quickly. Furthermore, we could be missing death by seconds every hour of our lives and never know it. This might sound like pessimistic thinking, but it's not. It very easily could lead to paranoia and agoraphobia, but it didn't.

What it did lead to was a respect for the fragile nature of life. A slow driver in front of me was no longer a source of anger and frustration, it became a potential life saver, a reason I didn't reach a certain spot when I had wanted. Since life can end at any second, I chose to see delays differently. Instead of fucking up my day, I realized that while I was stuck going ten miles below the speed limit, perhaps a car swerved into any empty lane instead of the spot where I would have been had I been traveling above the speed limit, like I prefer. Instead of getting mad at morons who didn't wait their turn at stop signs, I chose to believe there was some reason the whole ten seconds I had to wait was important. The thing is, I'll never know how many times I've cheated death, and missed a potential life ending situation by minutes or even seconds. I realized that so many things influence the outcome of life, so many nuances and choices made by other people could affect my life, that I just had to decide perceived set-backs and problems were just that-- perceived. Rejecting "the world is out to get me" theory and embracing the idea that I could have been saved by a tiny amount of time on multiple occasions on any given day freed me to give thanks for living. Every moment left to us is a gift. I have been leaving my gift on a landing somewhere lately. I need to pick it back up, and treasure it once more. I owe it to those who have found a few seconds or minutes merciless and cruel

Char

I've been putting this off for days. I found out about her death the morning after a two year murder anniversary, and it's just too much to look into myself right now and find a way to separate my own selfish wishes and desires from the true grief felt from the passing of a wonderful soul. She deserves more than my selfish pain and sorrow. She deserves a heartfelt tribute to one of the kindest and most gracious people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. My profile picture right now was taken by Char. I love it, and always have. See right above the tail? There's a heart hidden there in the giraffe spots. I find it fitting that Char managed to find an animal with a unique marking like that, a heart right out there, you only have to look the teeniest bit to find it. She had one of the most beautiful hearts herself, and all it takes is one look at her photography or her writing to see it. I think I've known her for four years now, but possibly five. Time spent online is screwy. In any case, Char has always been a positive force in my world. I often wondered how she could be so kind, so encouraging and so gracious, all while managing to be witty and funny. She always felt so real too. Her warmth never felt forced. Sometimes we are lucky enough to know we share our space in this world with a few truly special people. Thank you Char, for letting me know how special you are. I will always remember you with a smile, even if sometimes it's through tears.