again? really??

Sara Bareilles ‘Between the Lines’

“I’m only here to finish planning the wedding”. Seriously, did he just slip in a covert way to mention he’s getting married without telling me? Well, I guess I’m happy for him, but to her I say this: don’t get a potentially terminal illness and expect him to stay by your side. He’ll be gone in an instant, fucking some girl at a college in Ohio and blaming his sudden change of plans to stay by your side and wallow in true passionate love forever.

Fuck you. Whether you’re getting married or not. This is the third (previous) guy of mine to go off and live happily ever after with a girl by the same name. Call me, well, female, but it seems like more than a coincidence to me.

And what about me? I’m neglecting a sweet guy who’s madly in love with me. What would I do without him, I don’t know. It does not, however, keep me from being bitter about my circumstances. No one can have it all, but I wanted the strong guy, the one who fixes my broken stuff. I wanted the tough guy, the one who takes tough love and gives it back, likes to get dirty, and doesn’t hesitate. Instead, I am the one hesitating. I am the one left (always) and left to wonder where this is going. No, not in the normal girl needy-ness, just the general questions, and the really important ones.

I have been told how committed he is at least ten thousand times, but how is it again? It may be the best romantic intention he can fathom, and genuine at that, but still… I cannot help but think he will not be there to catch me. When I needed help for a few days before I got paid, he was there. He was there bitching about money and frustration, and not taking time to budget things out for himself. I felt weak and guilty, not grateful. I did not feel dependent, I felt depended on, even when I needed help most. When it really matters, will he rise above the racket of a co-op attack on the tele or poor decisions and a lack of motivation to step up beside me? Or will I have to keep stopping to let him catch up?

How much more can I slow my pace? I have, honestly. I know relationships are give and take. I’ve calmed down and taken my days one at a time with some mindfulness. I’ve compromised my type A personality to accommodate his lack of over-neurosis, and know he will not be just like me. We are two different people and while that is what makes us great together, what made us fall in love, I have to ask, are we too different?

Am I asking too much? Will he just not be responsible and I should take him exactly as he is? I have, and again, I love him for who he is. Then again, how exactly does he take me? If we both follow that rule, there is a big space between us.

lights, camera, action

“I cried, never gonna hold the hand of another guy…”

I stand, heart in hand. I know what it is, this package. I sit and tear it open with a long buried fervor. It is the videotape I knew it would be. My most precious memories are recorded on it’s silky black tape. I want to see it, but I can’t bring myself to.

I cave and head to Mother’s, who sweeps the dust off her vcr and leaves the room for me. I push the tape in and it begins to whir away in the machine. Static first, and then all the things I loved bathe my face in their light and movements. There I am too, laughing, smiling, looking so alive. I am happy here, and I am happy where I am right now, but something still conflicts.

The tape shows us, dancing on the porch, lying in the grass picking daisies, washing his bike, waving goodbye as he ships out. It was a new place in my life where nothing else mattered and all my worries and complications melted away in his arms. I stared so far up at him as I did watching that tape, and remembered a childhood, an adolescence, and a few moments of adulthood.

I watched him get down on one knee from thousands of miles away and ask me to marry him. I watched my tears of joy as I accepted.

Then the tone changed and I watch myself crying, composing myself and crying again. I watch the casket lower into the ground, and watched Sgt. Patrick kneel and hand me the flag. I watch static again, and the tape is over. My emotions are mixed.

Don’t be jealous, darling I pleaded. He isn’t here anymore. I remember the sensitivity, hairs raised and annoyance in my boyfriend’s voice–as I tried to justify myself?–as I tried to soothe him in knowing I could never go back to those sweet videotape times.

I see his point in that the rest of my life has been overshadowed by the time with my first love. The difference is I never left him and he never truly left me. Cory should have come home and we would have married June 23rd, 2004. I will never have that, but I have those memories that make me whole. They also leave me tarnished, no longer a virgin to an all-consuming love. It will never go away, and if I could have I would have gone with him and left the rest of my loves and opportunities and proposals behind.

As it stands, I cannot. I am in love again, and it is very different this time. I am insecure, neurotic, cold. I am not comforted, and I do not look up through an enveloping grasp of strong arms. My love now is a question mark, a passive answer, wholly agreeable. I don’t feel like I used to, some six years ago, trusting and relying on being caught when I fall and protected when the worst of life happens. Instead, I stand and protect him, comfort him with my own strong grasp, and build trust that I will be there to step up through the worst. Trouble though, that I am still a girl and not the man I want, and not the person I must be for someone else.

My ring, it was beautiful once, but it does not sparkle on my hand anymore. Will it ever? No. It is covered in dirt and tears.

God keep you.