We exchanged emails. Very professional, even cool in temperature though she used the term "not effusive" which may be more accurate than I like. She was very accepting of my news on maybe moving across country this year, though her reasoning wasn't said. We agreed that random contact isn't the best idea but we're keeping the door open in case one has something to be heard by the other and that's where it's left. She was flighty about seeing each other one more time but she didn't say no either.
So I took the time and the winter storm to write a few last words and post them. She'll read them, I'm sure but what I hope is that she'll read them again and again and maybe it'll grab hold of that woman who was so "effusive" back then.
Oh well. It's the best I can do and it's not even half of what the situation deserves. I suppose as always I am at the mercy of the person's interpretations and not my own clarity.
===
How about how many times have I written this letter? Well, I've finished it a couple of times and started it dozens more. Unfortunately, it never comes out as I want and I think it's because it's all so complicated in my heart. So, truthfully, I'm done trying to get it perfect and will concentrate on making it right. This is it then; this letter is an abject failure because what I feel is so much more than what you're reading.
I miss you so very much. There's no other words for it, so all I can do is repeat it. I miss you so *very much*. A day doesn't go by where I don't think that to myself and mean it a bit more than the day before. And yet I know that every time I say it, it doesn't undo the shame I feel for letting you go so long ago or the fact I cannot remedy any of this. Your absence is the same as if I have lost a limb or an eye: even if I am not thinking of you, my quality of life is detracted for it. Something in everything is lost to me when you aren't in my life.
Life without you does not seem much like living to me. It has been so long, I feel like I've outlived you. Like you died, and I am left behind - and yet there is no promise of ever meeting again. But we're both alive (alive, perhaps, but are we living?) and I live in hope that there is an answer to all this. To go on without you has already proven to be a private Hell for me. I will keep going for as long as it takes, even if its after I've been shoveled into my grave.
So what are we going to do about this, you and I? All I know is that I will waste my life if its not with you, that to so much as consider anyone else is a disservice. It is as if I am trapped on an empty sea facing a shoreline I can never reach. Why is it, my dream of so many years, I cannot be with you? How is it I must lie apart from you, from us? Will our separation improve the world? Will the moon reach higher or the birds to sing brighter? I do not see how. I don't see how this can be anything but a very private grief. But if that is all have of you, I'll carry even that.
I can't explain it better than that. I've tried because I've erased this a couple of times and I'm still not satisfied with it. But there it is in all its roughness. My love for you stumbles as words but not in feeling. Everything is between the lines and between now and my seeing you again.
I consider myself full of great fortune to have known you at all. I've never seen a sunrise to match your looks or found a person in any other life to match your graces. All I can bring to match any of your natural gifts is my appreciation, and my thanks and perhaps that this pale letter in apology in that the sum of me is not worth a fraction of you.
Please remember these small things: I will always love you and carry you with me. You will always have a place with me. That you will always be safe and cared by me for no matter what you may think of the rest of the world. That something inside of me belongs only to you and that it weeps inconsolably for you in the dark of every night we don't speak. That the old feelings of my hands in your hair at the train station or your breath in my ear or the gentle sounds you made when we intertwined on my couch - they are all sacred to me and that I ask to experience them again. I feel unfulfilled without experiencing the gifts only you posses. And though they may not be yours to give now, I will wait for them for as long as it takes. I have never said anything in my life I've believed more than that last sentence.
I think you have my phone number. You certainly remember my email (and even if you forgot it, my "professional" one is my first name with my last name and a period between, at the same email host) and Skype and some other things. Maybe when you're awake at one in the morning, you'll read this and remember and consider emailing me or texting. And you should, because my answer will always be "yes, please do" no matter how silly or slight you think it is, it will probably change my world forever to hear a handful of words from you. A man can be a man by himself but he will know nothing of Manhood without the love of the right woman.
I hope to hear from you one day, in this life. And if not then, I take sure comfort that because so much of what I am is because of you, that I will find you across that wide river we must all cross, many years from now. Perhaps then I can know a time with you, as I have spent so much of it without already.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
Amanda (Not Her Real Name), Part 5
I'm writing this in 2013. A year after that she told me to fuck off.
What happened between now and the last entry isn't much. A pile of emails. A lot of bait and switch, where she'd beg me to let her go one day... and then she'd get drunk and text me a week later or call me from a bathroom in a half-sob, wanting to hear my voice. The last "real" time I talked to her, I was actually driving back from Boston. I had hit a dead zone unknowingly and at some point on I-95 my cellphone went off with a very sad, almost whimpering voicemail. I've kept it on my phone since and fuck you if you think I'm going to delete it.
It's one of the last things I have from her. One of the only things.
We had traded some stuff via Amazon at one point: she sent me stuff important to her and I sent her the same. She sent me some if her favorite CDs and a pair of books, I replied with a Star Trek book I adored in middle school (Imzadi) that I thought she'd like to read with me (Trek is "banned" from the house), as well as some of my favorite movies ever (The Fountain, The Thin Red Line) and a copy of Holdridge Conducts Holdridge. I even tracked down author William Gibson (her favorite) while on a book tour and had him sign a copy of Neuromancer for her.
I'm pretty sure everything I just listed is in a landfill now.
What happened is easily explained and, I'll freely admit, most of it is my fault. For lack of a better word, she "dumped me" on my 30th birthday in March. I don't know if it was intentional but I can't see it being coincidence either. Too exact a time frame. And I wasn't entirely disheartened because she'd been fickle before and she'd always come back. She'd backed away three or four times before, for no discernible reasoning and so this time seemed like more of the same to me.
Between March and December, I didn't hear a word from her. I emailed her twice, both times drunk and rubbing snot into shirtsleeve. The third time, right before Christmas, I had fallen into the bottle and was drinking vodka or rum like it was tonic water. I have never had a drinking habit before, and this one crept up on me. Being drunk was a nightly thing and it was hard to judge how bad it really was until the next morning. So in a moment of drunk logic after not hearing from her for months, I sent her some stuff from Amazon despite any better judgement. It was just two Kate Bush CDs.
She flipped the fuck out.
She wrote that even if she was single again, she would never date me, that any future contact would be collected as evidence for the police, that I was a creepy person doing creepy things. Hello, shame spiral, it's been a while since you came around.
In hind sight, I don't blame her. I was pushing. But she'd come and gone and come back so many times already, I was expecting it all over again. And obviously, after that last email from her, I never contacted her again. I don't look her up on Google, I don't bother having anything to do with her aside from typing this stuff out. I pretty much go on with my life as best I can. A day becomes a month becomes a year. The pain doesn't dull so much as you just learn to live with it when it gets bad; most days are okay, others make you want to shut down and hide under the covers. I never do though.
Decided it was time to go into therapy. After a bunch of sessions, the doctor looks at me and says, flat out "There's nothing really wrong with you. You're just the most lost person I've ever met in my life." Like its the punch line to the driest joke ever.
Months pass.
Last Friday night, my friend Lauren texts me at one in the morning. I roll over to respond and check my email while my eyes are still half shut. Amanda. There's an email from her. My body reacts to it like I'd drank a pot of black coffee. I sit up and I'm not sure what to expect, hoping its not just a spam email.
Four words: "I still love you".
No idea of context or reasoning or timing. I want to write back but am unsure how to respond to a woman who threatened to send a lawsuit to my door. I cautiously word an email saying as much as I want to reply, I can't unless she rescinds her threats, and from the email address she had sent it from. It was clumsily worded but professional.
I've still not heard back. It's now been 72 hours.
What happened between now and the last entry isn't much. A pile of emails. A lot of bait and switch, where she'd beg me to let her go one day... and then she'd get drunk and text me a week later or call me from a bathroom in a half-sob, wanting to hear my voice. The last "real" time I talked to her, I was actually driving back from Boston. I had hit a dead zone unknowingly and at some point on I-95 my cellphone went off with a very sad, almost whimpering voicemail. I've kept it on my phone since and fuck you if you think I'm going to delete it.
It's one of the last things I have from her. One of the only things.
We had traded some stuff via Amazon at one point: she sent me stuff important to her and I sent her the same. She sent me some if her favorite CDs and a pair of books, I replied with a Star Trek book I adored in middle school (Imzadi) that I thought she'd like to read with me (Trek is "banned" from the house), as well as some of my favorite movies ever (The Fountain, The Thin Red Line) and a copy of Holdridge Conducts Holdridge. I even tracked down author William Gibson (her favorite) while on a book tour and had him sign a copy of Neuromancer for her.
I'm pretty sure everything I just listed is in a landfill now.
What happened is easily explained and, I'll freely admit, most of it is my fault. For lack of a better word, she "dumped me" on my 30th birthday in March. I don't know if it was intentional but I can't see it being coincidence either. Too exact a time frame. And I wasn't entirely disheartened because she'd been fickle before and she'd always come back. She'd backed away three or four times before, for no discernible reasoning and so this time seemed like more of the same to me.
Between March and December, I didn't hear a word from her. I emailed her twice, both times drunk and rubbing snot into shirtsleeve. The third time, right before Christmas, I had fallen into the bottle and was drinking vodka or rum like it was tonic water. I have never had a drinking habit before, and this one crept up on me. Being drunk was a nightly thing and it was hard to judge how bad it really was until the next morning. So in a moment of drunk logic after not hearing from her for months, I sent her some stuff from Amazon despite any better judgement. It was just two Kate Bush CDs.
She flipped the fuck out.
She wrote that even if she was single again, she would never date me, that any future contact would be collected as evidence for the police, that I was a creepy person doing creepy things. Hello, shame spiral, it's been a while since you came around.
In hind sight, I don't blame her. I was pushing. But she'd come and gone and come back so many times already, I was expecting it all over again. And obviously, after that last email from her, I never contacted her again. I don't look her up on Google, I don't bother having anything to do with her aside from typing this stuff out. I pretty much go on with my life as best I can. A day becomes a month becomes a year. The pain doesn't dull so much as you just learn to live with it when it gets bad; most days are okay, others make you want to shut down and hide under the covers. I never do though.
Decided it was time to go into therapy. After a bunch of sessions, the doctor looks at me and says, flat out "There's nothing really wrong with you. You're just the most lost person I've ever met in my life." Like its the punch line to the driest joke ever.
Months pass.
Last Friday night, my friend Lauren texts me at one in the morning. I roll over to respond and check my email while my eyes are still half shut. Amanda. There's an email from her. My body reacts to it like I'd drank a pot of black coffee. I sit up and I'm not sure what to expect, hoping its not just a spam email.
Four words: "I still love you".
No idea of context or reasoning or timing. I want to write back but am unsure how to respond to a woman who threatened to send a lawsuit to my door. I cautiously word an email saying as much as I want to reply, I can't unless she rescinds her threats, and from the email address she had sent it from. It was clumsily worded but professional.
I've still not heard back. It's now been 72 hours.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Amanda (Not Her Real Name), Part 4
March 6, 2010
We make plans. They unravel. We try again. She backs off. She says even talking to me feels like cheating. Then she says that she's coming down for a friend's birthday but that we can't see each other. That its too much and too overwhelming. I tell her I understand but my words bite harder than hers. I do understand - but I wish to Hell I didn't.
A week later, some dreary Friday evening, I'm curled on the futon watching Minority Report and drinking crappy Merlot. Thats what its come down to: acting like a goddamned frenchman. She texts me to say shes sorry, to see if I want to have brunch tomorrow morning. With no one else. That we don't even have to eat, we can just wander around New Haven again. Time and location is forthcoming, but it would only be for two hours or so and I'd have to get her to the train on time.
Morning comes around. Quick breakfast, shower, shave and I'm out the door early. A couple text messages between us and she's running late going with her friend to drop someone else off. I get there an hour early (bad habit of mine: fear of driving somewhere unfamiliar. Makes me get places way ahead of time) and kill time at a parking lot. Notice a chip in my windshield from the drive down on 95; not especially bad but a good enough nick with a half circle nickle around it.
I get a call, saying she's just pulled in and that she'll be out in a minute. By the time I'm at her door, she's half way across the front yard and into the passenger seat.
"Hi."
Her voice is high and gentle, like someone sighing upwards an octave. Theres a certain tense expectation to how she talks, how shes turned her whole body to face me. Before I pull out from the sidewalk and into traffic, she says "Wait, are you dressed up? Why are you dressed up?"
"Because," I tell her with a stupid grin, "You can't be the only one who looks good." Though I didn't really dress up. Charcoal slacks and a new collared shirt. Well, okay, maybe I did dress up a little. And I meant to, because just seeing her was important enough to do something like that.
We drive around and get lost on the turns on and off the highway to get to the center of New Haven. She laughs as I feign frustration at our mutual inability to find any familiar roads. We end up right back to the same strip mall next to Yale where the movie theater use to be and Barnes And Noble takes up two thirds of that side of the street. We duck into the used CD store first, lamenting how they're slowly becoming a thing of the past. She walks up to the soundtrack section and stops, looking at me worriedly.
"What?"
"No, nothing. I just knew you were going to walk here."
We thumb through the stacks of CDs and duck briefly into the vinyl. We pull out some fun stuff but leave only so empty handed that she curiously puts her hand into mine and grips gently, as if testing. I look at her and she leans closer, shuffling her feet.
We walk into Barnes And Noble and we go right back to looking at the books we did last time. She pulled out some books on punk music, I flipped through a copy of Mencken's America. We traded quips and details and books. We have another 45 minutes before the train shows up. She grabs my arm and we race down to the bottom floor and go through the humor section. We giggle like school kids over Our Dumb World. She gets closer as we get midway through the book, her hair smells a little like shampoo and a lot like ... well, if you've ever walked through a wheat field, you know that smell of earth-fresh grain. (Otherwise, just imagine something really pleasant and earthy.)
The book goes back on the shelf. I gently take her arm and she puts her head against my chest. She's the perfect height for a dancing partner; the top of her head fits just under the bottom of my chin. She gets flustered but doesn't move.
"No, wait, stop... people will see us!"
"Like you're ever going to see these people again. Like they matter. Like they matter more than this."
I finally put my hands in her hair and she softly goes limp, saying nothing. I can hear the fabric in her shirt stretch, slide, wrinkle as she tries to curl closer. Imagine trying to hold in your hand the thing in the world that most wants to hold you. Its not something I'm use to at all, but its something I wish I had more of and more often.
"We should go."
"Yeah, we should."
Neither of us moves.
I pull out away but keep my hands on her arms, guiding her to walk next to me out the door. Back at the car, she takes out two dollars and forces it into my hand. To pay for the parking. I try more than once to stick it back into her hand and she refuses, I relent. My hand again ends up in hers and she traces the veins on the top of my hand. She says something under her breath and then dismisses it when I ask her what it was. I call her gorgeous, she wraps her arm around mine and clings as she puts her head to my shoulder. It was like Linus with a blanket: she felt completely safe with me and I felt completely happy that she understood that kind of physical affection. We probably looked like "that couple" to the woman at the parking booth.
The train station is ten minutes away with traffic. She points out the chip in the windshield and I tell her I got it today, on the way to pick her up. Her eyes widen and she apologizes profusely, saying she wished I never picked her up if it was going to crack my windshield. I tell her that I don't mind, that it'll just remind me of spending an afternoon with her. The corner of her mouth curls up but her eyes get more worried, more consoling.
Her train is late. We sit down on the furnished wood benches at the terminal and watch the arrival and departure sign. I say it reminds me of the end of Say Anything and she giggles to herself, apologizing for reasons she doesn't share. Her hand is glued to mine so hard someone's palm starts to sweat and I'm not sure if its mine.
She doesn't look at me, but instead shuffles as close as she can get without putting her legs across mine, and then she says "I love you so bad." And now I feel like that elderly couple you see sitting around at McDonalds during early mall hours or the kind who feed pigeons in the park and still look at each other with that odd glow of all-knowing youth still in their eyes.
On the station platform, she puts her bag down and my hands instinctively go through her hair again and she coos without making a sound. Like morning fog gently passing over water, she says "I love you so much - but I feel like such a bastard for saying it." and I squeeze her, hugging her harder than before. Her arms lock into my ribs, then my back. She digs in like she's holding on from drowning - or at least like she's in missionary position.
Details falter here. I ask to kiss her and she quietly looks away and says something I can't hear. I nudge her chin up and go for it all the same, with or without permission. Her hands leave me and I wait for her to push me away but instead she tries to frantically find a place to grab hold of me and she balls parts of my shirt up in her fist. I think about leaning back - the movie music should kick in soon or I should at least be Frederic Henry, ready to jump on that train - but realize she's so nervous and weak-kneed she'd probably stumble. She breaks it off and then puts her face into my shirt, muttering embarrassments about kissing in front of other people.
We kiss again. And a third and fourth time. Each one a little shorter and she becomes a little more desperate after each. She buries into me like a tick, she grips, grabs, pulls at me. I've never felt such an overwhelming physical want projected from another human being. Not even in the sexual way but in the sense that physical force alone could get me to never move. "Dear God stay," she said with her fingertips, dug into my back, "Don't go away again."
Details come back right around here. The train pulls up and she stutters "I...I... I have to go."
"I know." (Yes, I used a Han Solo line. No, I didn't mean to but its amusing in hindsight.)
She gets on the train slowly, looking back time after time. Waving the last time before she disappears into the passenger car. I watch the train pull out because it reminded me of when she said not to watch her go into her parent's house and I did anyway.
I get a text message two minutes later - "You've ruined me."
We make plans. They unravel. We try again. She backs off. She says even talking to me feels like cheating. Then she says that she's coming down for a friend's birthday but that we can't see each other. That its too much and too overwhelming. I tell her I understand but my words bite harder than hers. I do understand - but I wish to Hell I didn't.
A week later, some dreary Friday evening, I'm curled on the futon watching Minority Report and drinking crappy Merlot. Thats what its come down to: acting like a goddamned frenchman. She texts me to say shes sorry, to see if I want to have brunch tomorrow morning. With no one else. That we don't even have to eat, we can just wander around New Haven again. Time and location is forthcoming, but it would only be for two hours or so and I'd have to get her to the train on time.
Morning comes around. Quick breakfast, shower, shave and I'm out the door early. A couple text messages between us and she's running late going with her friend to drop someone else off. I get there an hour early (bad habit of mine: fear of driving somewhere unfamiliar. Makes me get places way ahead of time) and kill time at a parking lot. Notice a chip in my windshield from the drive down on 95; not especially bad but a good enough nick with a half circle nickle around it.
I get a call, saying she's just pulled in and that she'll be out in a minute. By the time I'm at her door, she's half way across the front yard and into the passenger seat.
"Hi."
Her voice is high and gentle, like someone sighing upwards an octave. Theres a certain tense expectation to how she talks, how shes turned her whole body to face me. Before I pull out from the sidewalk and into traffic, she says "Wait, are you dressed up? Why are you dressed up?"
"Because," I tell her with a stupid grin, "You can't be the only one who looks good." Though I didn't really dress up. Charcoal slacks and a new collared shirt. Well, okay, maybe I did dress up a little. And I meant to, because just seeing her was important enough to do something like that.
We drive around and get lost on the turns on and off the highway to get to the center of New Haven. She laughs as I feign frustration at our mutual inability to find any familiar roads. We end up right back to the same strip mall next to Yale where the movie theater use to be and Barnes And Noble takes up two thirds of that side of the street. We duck into the used CD store first, lamenting how they're slowly becoming a thing of the past. She walks up to the soundtrack section and stops, looking at me worriedly.
"What?"
"No, nothing. I just knew you were going to walk here."
We thumb through the stacks of CDs and duck briefly into the vinyl. We pull out some fun stuff but leave only so empty handed that she curiously puts her hand into mine and grips gently, as if testing. I look at her and she leans closer, shuffling her feet.
We walk into Barnes And Noble and we go right back to looking at the books we did last time. She pulled out some books on punk music, I flipped through a copy of Mencken's America. We traded quips and details and books. We have another 45 minutes before the train shows up. She grabs my arm and we race down to the bottom floor and go through the humor section. We giggle like school kids over Our Dumb World. She gets closer as we get midway through the book, her hair smells a little like shampoo and a lot like ... well, if you've ever walked through a wheat field, you know that smell of earth-fresh grain. (Otherwise, just imagine something really pleasant and earthy.)
The book goes back on the shelf. I gently take her arm and she puts her head against my chest. She's the perfect height for a dancing partner; the top of her head fits just under the bottom of my chin. She gets flustered but doesn't move.
"No, wait, stop... people will see us!"
"Like you're ever going to see these people again. Like they matter. Like they matter more than this."
I finally put my hands in her hair and she softly goes limp, saying nothing. I can hear the fabric in her shirt stretch, slide, wrinkle as she tries to curl closer. Imagine trying to hold in your hand the thing in the world that most wants to hold you. Its not something I'm use to at all, but its something I wish I had more of and more often.
"We should go."
"Yeah, we should."
Neither of us moves.
I pull out away but keep my hands on her arms, guiding her to walk next to me out the door. Back at the car, she takes out two dollars and forces it into my hand. To pay for the parking. I try more than once to stick it back into her hand and she refuses, I relent. My hand again ends up in hers and she traces the veins on the top of my hand. She says something under her breath and then dismisses it when I ask her what it was. I call her gorgeous, she wraps her arm around mine and clings as she puts her head to my shoulder. It was like Linus with a blanket: she felt completely safe with me and I felt completely happy that she understood that kind of physical affection. We probably looked like "that couple" to the woman at the parking booth.
The train station is ten minutes away with traffic. She points out the chip in the windshield and I tell her I got it today, on the way to pick her up. Her eyes widen and she apologizes profusely, saying she wished I never picked her up if it was going to crack my windshield. I tell her that I don't mind, that it'll just remind me of spending an afternoon with her. The corner of her mouth curls up but her eyes get more worried, more consoling.
Her train is late. We sit down on the furnished wood benches at the terminal and watch the arrival and departure sign. I say it reminds me of the end of Say Anything and she giggles to herself, apologizing for reasons she doesn't share. Her hand is glued to mine so hard someone's palm starts to sweat and I'm not sure if its mine.
She doesn't look at me, but instead shuffles as close as she can get without putting her legs across mine, and then she says "I love you so bad." And now I feel like that elderly couple you see sitting around at McDonalds during early mall hours or the kind who feed pigeons in the park and still look at each other with that odd glow of all-knowing youth still in their eyes.
On the station platform, she puts her bag down and my hands instinctively go through her hair again and she coos without making a sound. Like morning fog gently passing over water, she says "I love you so much - but I feel like such a bastard for saying it." and I squeeze her, hugging her harder than before. Her arms lock into my ribs, then my back. She digs in like she's holding on from drowning - or at least like she's in missionary position.
Details falter here. I ask to kiss her and she quietly looks away and says something I can't hear. I nudge her chin up and go for it all the same, with or without permission. Her hands leave me and I wait for her to push me away but instead she tries to frantically find a place to grab hold of me and she balls parts of my shirt up in her fist. I think about leaning back - the movie music should kick in soon or I should at least be Frederic Henry, ready to jump on that train - but realize she's so nervous and weak-kneed she'd probably stumble. She breaks it off and then puts her face into my shirt, muttering embarrassments about kissing in front of other people.
We kiss again. And a third and fourth time. Each one a little shorter and she becomes a little more desperate after each. She buries into me like a tick, she grips, grabs, pulls at me. I've never felt such an overwhelming physical want projected from another human being. Not even in the sexual way but in the sense that physical force alone could get me to never move. "Dear God stay," she said with her fingertips, dug into my back, "Don't go away again."
Details come back right around here. The train pulls up and she stutters "I...I... I have to go."
"I know." (Yes, I used a Han Solo line. No, I didn't mean to but its amusing in hindsight.)
She gets on the train slowly, looking back time after time. Waving the last time before she disappears into the passenger car. I watch the train pull out because it reminded me of when she said not to watch her go into her parent's house and I did anyway.
I get a text message two minutes later - "You've ruined me."
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