The Crazy

So now I’m pissed at my best guy friend for up and Facebook-friending Jack after YEARS of not giving half a shit about him and frankly disliking him for the way he treats women.

Brad friended Jack. What the fuck. We all worked together once upon a time.. Brad left back in 2007 and literally has not talked to Jack since. And NOW, now that Jack is getting married, now that Jack has done so much to hurt me, now that Jack is somewhere between the love of my life who I lost and the object of my most penetrating hatred… Brad has friended him.

I’m so pissed I’ve tried four ways to contact Brad and tell him he needs to tell me why I shouldn’t be pissed.

Meanwhile, what did I do? Well, I went to Jack’s Facebook page, of course. We’re not friends, but some of what he posts is public. Including the new pictures of him and Gwyneth and the story of how he proposed during a marathon training run and “she gets her wish that I stop calling her my training partner.”

Memo to Gwyneth: he called you that all this time because he was HIDING YOU.

“We couldn’t be happier!” Jack says.

Good for you. Who are you, by the way?

Another memo to Gwyneth: the trail you were running on when he proposed was the one where I took the picture that’s framed in his condo. I gave it to him for Christmas in 2011. That’s my handwriting on the matte. He loved it. Loved it. I’ve never seen him react to anything with as much gratitude and emotion. I bet he never hung it because you would see it and ask about it. But it’s there somewhere. Hang it, please. So you have a reminder of where you fell in love. And where you got engaged. So he has a daily reminder of how he treated the woman who gave it to him.

I have called Joey and messaged Angie telling them I need them to talk me down given Brad’s move. And to once again stop me from sending Jack a really hateful message. Oh, it would feel so good. Here are some drafts:

You are going to ruin her.

OR

I heard you were marrying Gwyneth, eight months after throwing away ten years like it was nothing and telling me you were not capable of sustaining a substantive relationship. Good luck. You’ll both need it.

OR

How long were you sleeping with her and spending nights with me? When you cancelled on me Christmas night, telling me it was something that made you sick from dinner, was that because you were spending the night with her instead? Does she know you spent the next night with me? The night I gave you the framed photo of your running trail?

I kind of wish I could post a comment on his “could not be happier!” FB page that simply says, “Whatever.”

But I know that all makes me the smaller person. I know I’ve actually crossed into the Crazy that I always envied other women for being able to pull off. Brad says Jack contacted him via Facebook last week about tickets to an event and that’s why they became friends. I call bullshit. Defriend him now, then. You don’t even talk. I need to know that my best guy friend, who has been supportive and thoughtful and derisive of Jack, isn’t dividing his loyalties. Like Jack did.

Facebook is so unnecessarily… whatever.

I’m so upset I can’t even find words anymore.

Who Wrote Every Radio Song Ever? I’d Like A Word.

I’m at the point now where I think that all music with words in English needs to be banned from my earshot, and I’m talking to rom-coms on television trying to convince the stupid women in them to stop falling in love with the guy who can’t make up his mind.

I’m smart enough not to attempt the radio or most of my music collection. I usually have Pandora going on my laptop (the internet music service, not the band) while I’m cleaning or cooking, but I didn’t do it yesterday while I was frantically dusting and scrubbing and washing on deadline because having one neighbor over for dinner turned into a party of eight and I hadn’t cleaned in two weeks. But I had to go to the grocery store for tomatoes and mixed greens, and everything that played over the speakers high above my head was about love or breakups, or came from the standard 1990s collection of wedding songs.

So for now, I can’t go to grocery stores. Or watch Sunday afternoon television. Or see a random issue of People Magazine, because Gwyneth Paltrow is on the cover as the most beautiful woman in the world. (Which, let’s be honest, is nauseating even if Jack’s future wife didn’t look like her.) I also have to avoid everything relating to baseball (Jack’s passion), horses (long story, multiple chapters), several streets and restaurants, an entire television station (another long story with multiple chapters) and a lot of non-rom-com movies.

And certain cocktails.

And church.

Ralph Lauren Blue. Listerine Pocket Strips.

And, weirdly, zebras. He’s afraid of zebras. Not that I see zebras a lot, but when I do, I instantly think of Jack.

I’m taking to heart a lot of what friends have said – including blog friends – about Jack’s impending marriage and what it means, or doesn’t, about our relationship and about him. I just got off the phone with Joey, himself heartbroken over the breakup of his first real relationship in years. He somehow was the first one to get through to me that it doesn’t matter what I knew about Jack before, and it doesn’t matter what Jack thought about his capacity for relationships before, and it doesn’t matter what I understood before. Jack has changed. That’s all that matters.

It’s hard, though, to synthesize that with everything I know about him for the last ten years, and what he’s told me about the ten years before that. It’s hard to believe that after ten years of showing him what love is, and nearly 50 years of his own life, it only took eight months for him to completely turn around his whole understanding of himself. The only way his marriage will work is if he really did turn that around within himself.

What still hurts is that, when I asked whether I had any significance in his life, he had no answer, which meant the answer was no. I asked him that more than a year ago, and I’m still not over it. I have realized that there were lies and there was hiding and there was evasiveness and there was a fundamental lack of respect for me after all the years we were so many things for one another – but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him anymore. I don’t wish he were marrying me instead of Gwyneth –  not because I don’t love him or can’t imagine it, but because he’s hurt me too much. But I can’t understand, at bottom, why he didn’t have the respect for me that I had earned.

I’m angry with myself, too. I have been, I guess, for a long time. It’s another thing I made peace with and now it’s come back, in light of the change in conditions that makes me wonder what was true before. I’m angry that I let myself love someone who wouldn’t love me, even though I tried more than once to stop and I couldn’t. I’m angry that it wasn’t the first time. I’m angry that I considered his feelings above mine all the time, that I avoided showing him the fullness of how I felt – good or bad – because I didn’t want to scare him away, and in the end he walked away anyway. Who wouldn’t have seen that coming? I’m mad at myself for hiding the nature of that relationship from even my closest friends other than him, because I knew they wouldn’t approve, that they would warn me it was a bad sign. That’s what I would have done, too, if it were them instead of me. I’m angry that I was happy loving him and only thinking, or guessing, or hoping that he loved me.

I have learned a few things, yes. And I applied some of what I learned with Rick. I’m hoping those are lessons I won’t forget. But I worry about what effect this will have on me in the future, should I meet someone else and have the stomach for anything more than “hello.” I made a conscious decision, at more than one point, to trust Jack. I wonder now if I will be able to do that again, or if I will struggle with it so much that whoever he is will be discouraged.

And the memories that float to the surface unbidden – I’d like for them to stop. Images and impressions and senses and jokes and looks and touches and the indelible mark of his condo and the smell of the air there when I walked through the door… now when it flashes, she’s in the room, too. It knocks the wind out of me every time.

Day six. Breathe in.

Vapor

Jack is marrying Gwyneth.

It’s not a dream. It’s not some weird hallucination or some silly rumor. It’s true.

Jack is marrying Gwyneth.

Brad is the one who told me, God love him. He emailed me today while I was working and said that there was a rumor going around that I wasn’t going to want to hear, but that I would probably want to hear from him before any other way, and that he was probably going to have to tell me on the phone. I asked him if I would need vodka.

“I think you’ll probably be okay but you might plan on a glass of wine.”

Pfft. It’s like he doesn’t know me at all. ”I always plan on a glass of wine,” I replied. “That just means it’s Tuesday.”

Of all the things I couldn’t imagine it being, this was nowhere near the periphery.

Jack is marrying Gwyneth.

Brad told me the word had gotten out after Jack mentioned his “future wife” at an event the other night. Apparently then the Facebook chatter started – chatter I never saw because I’m not friends with either of them now. Apparently they’re not engaged officially, but are getting engaged officially soon. 

Apparently a lot of things.

I was in my car when Brad told me this and I had to adjust my rearview mirror to see my own face. This is not an overstatement: nothing in my life has ever shocked me as much as this. Nothing. Not even when a boyfriend got married to a woman he had barely known before me, who lived a thousand miles away, less than eight months after breaking up with me. And I literally fell over when I heard that.

Jack didn’t want to get married. Ever. To anyone. 

Jack spent years telling me I was his ideal. I thought if he would ever marry anyone, he would have to at least date me first. I thought Gwyneth was just the latest part of his pattern of almost loving someone and then walking away. I felt a little sorry for her. I thought, when he told me in September that he wasn’t capable of sustaining a substantive relationship, that he must be right.

Jack and I haven’t spoken since then, when he abandoned our friendship entirely after heartfelt and honest entreaties from me to save it for what it was – ten years of something truly extraordinary. He told me he knew he had caused me great pain and would take steps to repair it when it was no longer so painful for me. 

I knew then that I would never hear from him again. But I never, ever could have imagined this.

She’s 22 years younger than him. He’ll be 50 next January. Could that be why he’s doing this now?

What was I – his trainer?

How long had he lied to me? One morning when I woke up in his bed, in July of 2011, and saw a t-shirt lying near my feet that I hadn’t seen the night before, and asked him where it had come from… when I thought for sure she had worn it, somehow, months before I knew they had some sort of relationship, I thought it for sure, and he said it was just a shirt he sometimes wore to bed… when I smelled it to see if it smelled like a woman before he came back into the room… when I knew he never wore t-shirts to bed… had I been right, all the way back then? A year before the last time I saw him? Almost two years ago now?

How long had he been spending nights with both of us?

How could he?

Years ago… how many years ago? eight?… I remember sitting across from him at a table outside our regular hangout. We had never touched beyond a hug goodbye. I loved him already, but it was controlled. I remember thinking that if I put my hand on his chest, he would disappear. He would fade like vapor under my palm, before my eyes. 

Six years later, I knew how solid he was, how real. It seemed impossible that he could disappear for me now. Even if he changed, even if the touch went away, he could never disappear for me now.

And now it’s like he’s vanished. Like none of it was ever real at all. Like it was never more than mist, mirage, oasis. Like it was someone else’s life. Like that movie, “Midnight In Paris,” as if I’d gotten into a car at a particular time in a particular place and found myself in another dimension, not to be believed… but so very, very real, and so immensely pivotal to my life.

He has been past-tense to me for months. I don’t remember exactly when I fully accepted that I would never hear from him again, but it’s been months. I thought I might be finished crying.

I still dream of him. I feel a sting at certain times during Mass, times when I always used to give his name to God, times when I always used to think of holding his hand.

It’s terrible of me to think that this is only happening because he’s nearing 50, because she’s cute and blonde and 27 and likes to run, because her mother has cancer and his mother died of it when he was 17. It’s cruel of me to think the connection is that cheap, that it is built on something so easily found with a million other people. When what we had was so…

What? What was it? 

Was it anything?

Did I spend ten years in love with someone who wasn’t real?

It’s cruel of me to want to send him a message with three words: “Is she pregnant?” when I don’t want to know. It’s cruel of me to want to send him a message telling him nothing has ever shocked me more and no one has ever hurt me more and I have never loved anyone more, and then telling him to never reply.To want to ask him how long he lied to both of us and whether he still lies to her. To ask whether she knows about me. To ask her whether she knows about me.

None of it matters. And I know, if I were her, I might think that, after all, I‘m the one who gets him, swearing to God and all who are present, to love, to honor, to cherish. That, after all the decades of love and loss, I’m the one to whom he has promised himself.

Somehow, now, I have become the vapor under his hand.

 

Epicness

You guys, this day was so I don’t even know what that I can’t come up with a first sentence.

So I gave you that one.

It started with me having to run interference on Facebook posts. My sister, who often gets caught up in what she thinks is a good idea without realizing it could, um, totally hijack someone else’s day, posted on Facebook about how I was getting these governor’s awards at this luncheon. She posted my name. She posted a weblink to the Thing.

Nooo. What are you doing?!

And then one of my best friends, who is also Facebook friends with her, reposted it.

Oh, come on, no!

And then my aunt.

No no no no no!

Yelling that. Aloud in my kitchen.

So then I had to text all of them and tell them that I really appreciated their support but that I had deliberately not advertised this and could they please take down the Facebook posts? Because now literally 2,000 people know and I’m going to get questions I don’t want to answer. There are a lot of implications – strangers knowing too much, family and friends with whom I didn’t share the information asking too much, work possibly seeing it and questioning whether it was okay for me to lobby for a law while being professionally involved with my company.

Take it down, please. Now.

They did, fortunately, but I wound up crying. It was 9am and I was already on emotional overload. I was getting two governor’s awards for my victims’ advocacy work. I was giving a speech. Once it was a five-minute speech. Then I was told three minutes. Then I was told between three and five minutes, so I sort of merged the two, made it a Best Of and had Sam edit it. Which meant switching some things around a little and recalibrating. Fine. I can do those things. But the message of the speech… the impact of a stalker, the need for victim notification of prisoner release in cases of misdemeanor offense, the long-term effects of being a crime victim, the need for people who dedicate themselves to helping… it was heavy. My parents were coming. They would hear this speech and likely be set on edge and maybe even upset by it. Rick would be there. Or not, depending on his meeting.

An hour before the event began, my parents called to tell me they were stuck in bad traffic from an accident exactly nowhere near where they needed to be. I wasn’t sure they would make it in time to hear my speech, which would, of course, upset them. Then, sitting in my car in the parking lot outside the luncheon site, I drizzled a not insignificant amount of red nail polish on my blue spring coat.

So things were off to a great start.

My parents did make it in time. Somehow. So did Rick. He slipped in a little late and sat in the back, instead of at the table with us, the group of people receiving an award for the work we did. He did that work, really. But he came over after my speech, tapped me on the shoulder and said he was sitting elsewhere so he could slip out to tend to other professional obligations when he had to.

Seeing him felt sad. And good. And made me miss him. And made me hope. And felt awkward.

But I was glad he made it to get his award. And to hear my speech and see me in my really nice dress and heels with my hair up. He likes that look, and I’m a big believer in the lingering image.

I think my speech went well, but to be honest, I’ve blocked out parts of it. I wondered afterward if I had really said everything. I had written it all out, then rehearsed it so I would know it well enough not to have to read it word for word. But a whole section is missing from my memory.

The other speakers had lived through experiences so much worse than my own. I try not to qualify it that way. I try not to invalidate my experience vis-a-vis someone else’s, but when you’re speaking after a woman whose husband was killed and before a woman whose husband beat her and then murdered her two young children, you do feel like you’re unfairly spotlighted.

When the time came to give me my individual award, I looked toward the back of the room and saw Rick standing there in the doorway with the senator. He was backlit from the windows and surrounded by white marble. It was like he was glowing. I felt a pang. A few minutes later, when they announced our group award, I avoided looking at him but couldn’t help noticing the grin on his face. He deserved this, and he deserved to be proud. I was proud of him, too.

After that, he and the senator came and sat at our table, where my parents had joined us because our group was so scattered throughout the room. He wound up talking to my parents for a while. I have no idea what they talked about; several people had come up to me and I was justifiably distracted. And somewhat willfully ingoring his presence. Not because I didn’t want him there, but because I didn’t trust myself to act like there had never been anything between us.

After we left and I led my parents back to my house, I checked my phone and saw I’d missed a call. From the university. I returned it.

They offered me the job. Maximum salary allowed, title I wanted. I start May 1.

As promised, I texted Rick to let him know. His response: “Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! CONGRATS! You’ve had a very big day, if I do say so myself.”

It was a big day. A big, difficult, surreal, emotional on every level day. So much so that I don’t think it’s registered.

My mother wanted to frame my awards and hang them. In my bedroom.

No no no no no.

 

Fourth Round Upset

If any of you had me losing to the universe in the March Madness relationship tournament… congratulations. You’ve won. Allow me to play “One Shitty Moment” while you snip away the tattered remains of my love life.

Oh, it’s not really that dramatic, don’t worry. I can be around sharps. 

Yes, you finally get to hear the end of the Rick Saga, because it has reached its end. Yesterday I messaged him asking for a conversation and he called me five minutes after he read it. Much was said, but the upshot is that he thought he was ready to date, but he isn’t, and he’s so overwhelmed emotionally that he hasn’t been able to deal with his life beyond work. He’s thrown himself into the job to distract himself from everything else. Duh. And he’s so uncertain about what he wants for his personal life that he’s even wondered whether leaving The Ex was the right decision. He doesn’t know whether to move into a new place or move back in with her. 

So, yeah.

That was really the only part of the conversation that surprised me, or any of you, probably, if you’ve been playing our game at home. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I slept well or that I don’t have sort of epically puffed-up eyes from crying myself to sleep. I really hate that particular feature of crying myself to sleep, by the way. Like insult really needs to be added to injury at that point. My eyes are assholes.

It was a long and honest conversation during which we agreed that there will be no hard feelings or awkwardness if the university ever fucking calls me and offers me the goddamned job. He says he’s truly excited about me getting it (allegedly) and looks forward to having a friendly face around that he can vent to sometimes. At which point I fell silent, because after approximately seven eons of dating and two years-long, particularly cruel bouts of unrequited love, I have finally realized I can’t be “friends” with someone I’ve been interested in. But I didn’t need to say that out loud at this point. 

I’m still waiting for my Cinderella story. But I’m seriously, seriously considering quitting the game and taking up competitive eating instead.

Really?

Aaaand we’re officially pissed at Rick.

So, we haven’t seen each other in two weeks, save the 30 minutes or so we had in his office after my second interview on Tuesday, one floor up. Texting has gotten rather stale. He calls to update me on job possibility stuff or legislature stuff, but that’s it. The other night we were going to get together after I was done with work, but he cancelled at 9:45 because he was too tired. I found out he’s got his whole birthday weekend planned, and I’m not included. Two weekends ago, he volunteered to babysit his nephew, which nixed our chances of getting together. Last weekend he wasn’t feeling well. I’m really good about not initiating and not pushing, but I think this is too long without making plans. This takes things out of slow gear and into stall.

This weekend I’m going to New Jersey to meet my Shiny New Niece who just got borned on Wednesday. Last night he started our nightly text conversation with “Have fun this weekend with your niece! “

(Um…. )

Me: Thanks! You know it’s only Thursday, right?

Him: Yup. Just being premature.

(Something’s fishy. But the conversation continues for a while on good rapport. And then…)

Me: So when’s our next date?

Him: Great question! Hopefully before the next Star Wars movie comes out!

Me: Well, that’s in 2015, so yeah.

(It takes him several minutes to reply. He must be composing a long text of ideas and suggestions. And then…)

Him: Haha!!

(And then I throw the phone down because hello?!)

(A few minutes and deep breaths later, remembering that I don’t drop hints and I don’t do passive-aggression with men I’m dating…and I’ve told him that, for some stupid, stupid reason…)

Me: Sunday night?

Him: Possibly.

(Phone gets thrown down again. I do not appreciate evasiveness.)

(Minutes. Deep breaths. I should probably let it go here, but I try one more round of lighthearted suggestion.)

Me: I think we could use a night out!

Him: True. I have another busy week ahead beginning Monday morning. This month I’ll be at the statehouse every day.

(Yeah, okay, fuck you too.)

(Minutes. Debate. Inner conflict. Hypothetical mental text message composition, revision, further revision. I decide.)

Me: Okay, well whenever you can make some time!

(Phone takes a header. Also? Note the lack of smileyface emoticon. Take that.)

Alright, so maybe that last thing was slightly passive-aggressive. But also totally deniable. I changed the punctuation from a . to a ! so I could pass it off as cheerful at a later time if necessary. Because yes, Rick, I do understand the steaming pile of crap on your plate right now. And yes, I am understanding and flexible about when we can see each other. But don’t take advantage of that. It’s not okay to go a month without seeing the person you’re dating. You are not, in fact, dating if that’s the case. Don’t go from calling me your girlfriend to wanting to go slow to not seeing me for two weeks to not even making an effort… and expect me to be “understanding.”

Why do I even like you people? I mean, at all? Ever? You think we’re weak? You think we’re unstable?

Now, I realize something else might be working on him. He’s been working a lot in the state capital, which happens to be where he lived with The Ex. He mentioned the other day that being there means being reminded of a lot of things. She works for the state legislature, too.

So maybe he’s freaked about the possibility of working with me. Not with me, really, because if I get the job, we’d be in totally different departments on different floors doing different work and probably not even sitting in the same meetings. But maybe there’s that mental attachment thing, that connection between location and relationship, that’s freaking him out because of The Ex.

Totally possible. Despite all his excitement and effort to help me get the job. But that’s going to happen with any relationship. Like that song, “Always Something There To Remind Me,” that scares the crap out of me because it was on the radio the day I got tubes in my ears and they had drained all the fluid from behind my eardrums and I could finally hear and it seemed so loud, with its creepy bells and whatnot. So there are reminders. What are you going to do, move out of town every time you break up with someone?

And as previously mentioned in this here blog, I decided a few years ago that I was done guessing what a guy was thinking. Either he tells me or I don’t know. That’s all there is to it. I’m not putting myself through those mental Cirque du Soleil exercises anymore. Because you know what happens? You glom on to an explanation – oh, that must be it! – and then you’re wrong, but before you realize you’re wrong you’ve constructed an entire system of emotional and relational operation around your wrongness.

Screw that noise.

Back in the beginning of February, I had this really weird dream. I was in the ER for some reason – pain of some kind. Really severe pain. I was by myself, and they put me alone in a room and gave me, of all things, a breast pump. That was my treatment. And somehow, it worked. I managed to, in spite of never having birthed a child, express milk. And it relieved this pain I was in. Which was not, I should point out, any kind of boob pain. And so I felt better, and I was all, “How am I even doing this?” and then I looked down and saw that the plastic bag collecting the milk was now collecting blood.

I looked this up because naturally you want to know what it means when you dream you’re hemmorhaging from your nipples, and the breast pump signifies my ability to nurture and give love. Seems obvious. And then I realized maybe the dream means that I tend to give more than I should because it kills a different kind of pain for me.

Well, I’d like to stop doing that.

So now the ball is in his proverbial court entirely. It’s not even on a line or a net or anything like that. Your serve, sir. As I was publishing this post initially, I hadn’t heard from him today and didn’t expect to. And then, as soon as I hit PUBLISH, the phone dinged.

Him: Talk about a looong day! So much happened (work-related) it’s too much for a text message. Have a great weekend with your family.

It’s a good thing this phone has a protective cover.

 

Ohhh… Is THIS What It’s Supposed To Be Like?

The other night, Rick and I accidentally stumbled into what might have been the most grown-up conversation I’ve ever had with a man I was dating.

He had texted me – this is the vast majority of our communication, which is both cute and kind of annoying because I prefer actual voice-on-voice action, but guys don’t like to talk on the phone – anyway, he had texted me to say he was sorry he’d been MIA in the last few days, but he’d been surprisingly busy with work. I knew he’d been busy and he hadn’t been completely MIA, but I had heard from him less than usual. I also knew there was a lot more reason than that for his relative quiet. And out it came.

“To be honest, I’m not looking to rush into anything,” he said.

Well of course not! He just got out of something two months ago, and last week she boxed up his stuff and dropped it off in a state legislature office building where he no longer works. I mean… there’s some stuff to handle, there.

This opened up an hour-long actual voice-on-voice conversation in which I completely stunned myself by being awesome and not in the slightest bit neourotic.

I know. It’s weird.

He’s worried I’m going to think he has too much baggage. What I actually think is that we’re 35 and anyone on the planet who’s single at 35 has baggage. If not, then their lack of baggage becomes baggage, because clearly they have no romantic relationship history of any kind. In which case? Stay away. You’re about to have a Stage 5 Clinger on your hands.

He’s worried that, on paper, he looks like someone a woman should stay away from right now. And you know what? He’s right. (Aside from the fact that he’s incredibly good-looking, which for me usually means intense attraction slash intense distrust, but herein only means the first bit, which is also weird.) I told him that if I had just met him in January, I might steer clear of this great-looking guy who literally just got out of something that was apparently nuclear in the end, and who is currently sleeping in a pirate bed at his parents’ house. But I’ve known him in some way for two years, so that stuff  isn’t freaking me out.

He’s worried about repeating past mistakes. He thinks he rushed into the relationship that just ended-  an 18-month term, and they lived together for a significant portion of that. He thinks that rushing may have helped create the problems that eventually led to their undoing as a couple. He wants us to keep seeing each other, definitely. He just wishes the timing had been better, so he wouldn’t be trying to put something behind him while we were getting started. “I don’t want issues with her to come between us,” he said.

And then he said this. He actually said this, he said — are you ready? He said: “I just want us to take our time and get to know each other and see where it goes naturally. I don’t want to go too far (physically) yet. The older I get, the more I understand that that’s no good unless there’s something real there.”

*Blink*

*Blink*

And I was all, Are you real? You’re not real. No guys say that. Exactly zero guys say that. What most guys say is “I don’t want to rush anything” and what they mean is “except the sex part. That I want to rush. The rest I want to avoid for as long as possible. Is that cool?”

So after I recovered from the shock of him being so decent, and the shock of my not freaking out and thinking what he was saying meant he didn’t want to see me anymore, I told him my thoughts. I’m fine going slow. I’m good with not rushing anything. I understand where he is in his heart and his head, and I don’t expect him to be over his ex, or past the pain of the situation, already. I like hearing from him every day because it lets me know he’s still interested, but I’m not going to freak out if I don’t hear from him for a day (okay, that part was kind of bullshit, but he doesn’t need to know that). If I say I’m glad to see him or hear from him, it’s because I am. Not because I’m trying to send a passive-aggressive message about not having seen or heard from him in X amount of time.

“God, that is so refreshing,” he said in a big exhalation.

Can I know how things will unfold? Certainly not. But I know he’s not a walking disaster. He’s been through a lot recently: the death of a beloved uncle, the end of his relationship in spectacular fashion, the subsequent limbo state of staying at his parents’ house while his stuff still lives at the apartment they shared because he has no time to find a new place and no money because he’s paying the rent on the old place while the ex recovers from a hospitalization. Over Christmas. She landed there at the same time as the uncle’s death. And on January 2nd, he started a stressful new job.

So if anybody can handle all that and still stay sane and steady, they’re a winner, in my book. Especially if, a year ago, for reasons having mostly to do with a true passion for public service and a little bit to do with making his boss look good, he got something done for crime victims that will help keep them safe, and he did it because of me.

The morning after our conversation, I got a text. “I’m so glad we talked last night,” it said. “I feel much more at ease about everything. Thank you.”

Oh, honey. Thank you.

Keep Your Arms and Legs Inside the Car At All Times

Well, right on cue, I’m getting neurotic.

I always wonder: am I the only one who gets like this? Or who gets like this beyond the age of 22? It makes me feel immature and destined to fail, like my nerves become a self-fulfilling prophesy as all the doubts flood my head and tell me, one way or another, “He’s going to ditch you. In a month, or two, at most, he’ll be gone.”

What evidence do I have for this? I hadn’t heard from Rick Tuesday, except for one response to a message I sent. That’s all. And I know. I know that’s stupid. I know it’s needy  of me. I knew he was at work, and very possibly in meetings all day long. The last three days he was off and had all the freedom in the world to talk with me, and he did. We’ve seen each other twice, there has been an official First Kiss, and he has said he can’t wait to see me again (when we can hopefully try the Next Kiss in an environment warmer than a parking lot at 2am in January). We’ve exchanged grin-inducing messages that made my face hurt for an hour.

He has told me I’m very pretty, and that I shouldn’t thank him for saying it because it’s just a fact.

Ohhhh, but I could fall hard for this one.

Enter the voices. He just got out of a relationship. Do you really want to be the rebound? 

(To which, quite honestly, the answer is, “Um, have you seen him? Yes. Yes, in fact, I do.”)

He’s still paying the rent on their place. Why is he paying it? Will he get his own place? Are they going to get back together? Why did they break up? Did he cheat? Will he wind up keeping me a secret for months because he thinks it looks bad that we went out so soon after his breakup? Or for some other reason? Does he even want a relationship right now or am I just salve for his pain? He worked for a politician and ran for office, himself… is he just a smooth operator? Is this chivalry of opened doors and pulled-out chairs just an act? Can I even believe him when he says such nice things to me? Will he just disappear, stop calling?

I have been kept a secret. I have been smooth-talked. I have been cheated on. I have been lied to. I have been disappeared on. These things don’t make me exceptional; most of them happen to everyone. I’m 35, so it’s happened to me much more than perhaps those who were married ten years younger and stayed that way. It’s a numbers game; the odds are stacked against me. And almost all relationships end. You really only hope for one Forever, and if you’re wise, you know that one won’t be perfect.

The problem is that when it ends those ways that many times, you start to think it’s because of you. And then every time it happens after that, your fears are only confirmed. And pretty soon you’re pretty sure it will happen again this time, no matter what, or who, this time is.

Today is Jack’s birthday. He was in a dream I had two nights ago, taking me to the doctor because I was badly ill. And that has happened in real life. But Rick was in a dream I had the night before that. Nothing too substantial, but he was there. Like real life. Jack will, I’m sure, be hovering on the edge of my consciousness today. This will be the first January 23rd in 10 years that I will not call and sing “Happy Birthday” to him, that I will not celebrate his existence. He doesn’t like fuss on this day, but I wonder if he will miss it.  And I’m sure that, in some way, Jack’s birthday is part of why I got neurotic about Rick.

Who, by the way, did end up in meetings all day, and we chatted through the night after he left work via those wondrous things with which I have a love-hate relationship: text messages.

Of course, once I heard from him, the neurosis cleared up. And we made a date for Friday.

It’s exhausting, being in my head. And my heart.

Guess I’d better buckle up.

I Had A Date.

I had texted my friend Sam, whose interest in my love life rivals my own, a photo of what I was planning to wear for my date with Rick Friday night.

“Are you going to church?” was his reply. “Really cool looking bathroom, though,” he added.

Ugh. “The shirt is see-through, asshole. But fine. Suggestions?” And then I sent him a picture of the bathroom.

“The problem is that you have something underneath the see-thru shirt.”

“Yeah, kinda have to.”

A pause.

“Anything to offer the occasional cleavage glimpse?” he wanted to know.

I changed the damned shirt. Put on a tight, black v-neck. Sent the picture.

“Giddyup” came back.

I wondered. “Do accessories matter in the slightest?”

Ding. “A necklace might be nice. Whaddaya got?”

I took two photos. Two different necklaces.

“#2. Something to give an excuse to glance at when I’m not looking at your boobs.” He really does have my best interests at heart, but Sam has never been shy about talking up my assets. God bless him.

“I see you’re planning to come along,” I told him.

“If this dude loves your body as much as I do, you’ll thank me.”

Sam, Sam, Sam… have you forgotten the delicate situation that led us here?  “This dude met me because I had a stalker. Can’t go too hot or I’ll look like I deserved it.”

And so I prepared for dating in the digital age. Yes, I have had a date or two since the dawning of that age… hell, my age bracket invented social media and the text message… but it’s been a while, and frankly, I’m kind of no good at dating. And I really do have to think a little bit about how to date the guy I met because he was chief of staff for a state senator who wrote a bill increasing victim information, inspired by my story of stalking. He was always very respectful and careful about it while we were working on the bill. And apparently, he had thought about how to ask me out, too, because, over dinner, he told me that he hadn’t been quite sure how to approach it.

I find that rather gallant.

I hadn’t known for certain whether this was a date, this meeting for drinks to talk about my ideas for legislation that no longer had any bearing on his life since he no longer works for the state senator. I knew that was a guise, but I didn’t know how much of a guise. Thus the outfit debate. Obviously I needed something that looked effortlessly sexy but not too hot, age appropriate but not boring, appealing enough to suit a date but average enough not to presume one. For women, this translates to “thought-out for hours and put on immediately after the pre-meet-up shower, but appearing to have only just been thrown on somewhere in the course of the day.”

Were we really only having drinks? Might we have dinner? Would it be presumptuous to put a name in for a table when I got there before him? How should we greet each other? I’ve actually only met him in person once, despite two years of phone calls, emails and, most recently, Facebook messages.

There is, like, no precedent for this when you’re in your mid-30s. You feel like a teenager who just arrived from a third-world country. You’re past the part of your life where you feel like appearances are everything and you have to play it cool, but you still don’t want to demonstrate the very high likelihood that you’d just about kill for a relationship that works out.

Fit that into 140 characters. With the appropriate emoticons.

But when he threw open the door and ushered in a gust of frigid wind, made late by a traffic jam, he didn’t hesitate to come right up and give me a big (but not too lingering) hug. “How long’s the wait?” he asked. I hadn’t inquired, but had been just about to. It turned out we had just enough time to order a bottle of wine at the bar before the hostess came and found us as the bartender popped the cork.

Honestly, though? We were totally comfortable from the beginning. I guess that’s because we have communicated for nearly two years – albeit for somewhat professionally-driven purposes on his end and lobbying purposes on mine. But we stayed in touch when that effort had ended, talked job hunting, traded the occasional inconsequential tag-up, like a base runner making sure to tap the bag before taking off.

Rick recently broke up with someone, and I’m moving past Jack, so we’re both dealing with a little trepidation mixed with excitement at the prospect of something – and someone – new. His circumstances are trickier: he moved out of the place they were sharing and is now staying – horrors – with his parents. Sleeping in his old room.

Which has been converted to his nephew’s room for sleepovers.

Which means a 34-year-old man is sleeping in a bed made to look like a pirate ship.

I found his telling me this, hanging his head in mock shame and full awareness of the difficulty this could pose on a possible new relationship, endearing.

But we had a really nice night. We spent five hours talking and eating, drained the bottle of wine but paced ourselves. There were pink-faced confessions that, indeed, this had always been meant as a date, that indeed there was mutual attraction from the first time we met. There was wonder at the circumstances that had brought us to this table. And we laughed. We laughed a good bit. (Happily, I didn’t spit out my food even once.) Neither of us wanted dinner to end, and he asked where else we could go; in the cold, we only bore walking half a block before we spotted a dive pizza joint and ducked in to down hot chocolate before they turned the lights off on us. Standing outside my car, we hugged goodbye and agreed to get together again soon.

I drove home grinning like a fool. He texted me a thank you and reminded me to let him know when I was free next. I grinned more.

And now I’m back to being the third-world teenager, navigating a day of text messages infused with flirtation and possible days for the next meeting.

Smiley face.

 

On the Sixth Day of Christmas

On the sixth day of Christmas, I rejoiced in someone else’s sorrow. Lil bit.

Okay, so do you remember the story about how I worked with the chief of staff for a state senator on some crime victims’ rights legislation? And how the chief of staff was super-hot and looked like David Beckham and NOT like Philip Seymour Hoffman, as I expected? And how it was all very West Wing and I totally expected Aaron Sorkin to come walking out of the adjoining office when I finally met said David Beckham look-alike?

Well, he and I have stayed in touch, we could wind up working together in new jobs for both of us at the same place, and his uncle died two days before Christmas and his girlfriend was in the hospital and now they’re apparently spending some time apart… and I am super-excited about it.

I know. I’m horrible.

Look. I’m not excited that she was hospitalized, okay? I’m not excited that his uncle died right before Christmas. That’s incredibly sad and my heart goes out to his family, truly. And I don’t know what’s wrong with the girlfriend (or possibly un-girlfriend), but for the record? I was totally concerned even though I’ve never met her. Just today I was driving to work thinking, “I wonder how Rick’s girlfriend is doing. I hope it’s not serious. I hope she didn’t have to stay in the hospital on Christmas Day. That would have been awful.”

See?

But you have to admit, it’s star-crossed. Woman has stalker. Woman works with never-seen man via phone and email for months to pass legislation in state. Woman races to committee hearing whilst trying to keep clothing on her person, fixes self up in office building bathroom, pretends to be as strong and together as she hopes to look while being completely frazzled and vulnerable on the inside. Woman meets man while man is holding delicious double-chocolate cookie. Instant attraction crackles. Conflict is set up: oh, if only… but we must wait until this legislation passes… and until his girlfriend is run over by a truck… can I have that cookie? Music swells, zoom tight on faces, fade to black, end scene.

We’re not talking B-grade rom-com here. We’re talking Love Actually. Something guys don’t hate to admit they like.

And no, I wasn’t actually hoping his girlfriend would get run over by a truck, or even by a Volkswagen Beetle or a SmartCar. I had completely accepted by now that she existed. I allegedly don’t know her name (it’s Sara – thanks, Rick’s Sister On His Facebook Page) but I know they just moved into a new apartment. Which makes this whole taking-time-apart-while-she-recovers-from-some-hospital-worthy-Christmas-illness thing a little awkward, I bet.

And yes. Yes, I am aware of the irony that I’m sort of excited about someone else’s heartache when I myself have been stuck in the muck of just that kind of heartache. Almost that kind.

But one person’s hell is another person’s hope, and I don’t want anyone to suffer, but I need to hope a little. Is all.

Hey, probably this will go nowhere. Probably the girlfriend will recover and they’ll reconcile and I won’t get the job working in the same building as Rick. Probably I’ll never actually see him in person again.

But it’s Christmastime. The cusp of a new year. And I love Aaron Sorkin’s writing. And a girl can dream.