The way I do it

It's May 2008, a really fine May too, the sun shines and the streets are coated in delicate cherry blossom petals.  I've just spent the better part of a morning getting scrubbed, plucked and polished in an attempt to bond with Beth, Theresa's new girlfriend.  They've been dating for about a month now and in that time Theresa has seemed infinitely happier than she ever was during our ten years.

"She's just like you except she likes to have sex," Theresa joked during one of our late-night phone conversations.  We were still close then, still trying to salvage a friendship from the wreckage our relationship had become.  Trying was what we did best: giving it another shot, working it out, taking another stab at it.  We were tolerant to a fault, bending over so far backwards for each other that neither of us could remember what a reasonable partnership was supposed to look like.  Deciding to break up once and for all took us over two years because we had to try absolutely everything that might right us, including counseling, separation, and even a brief foray into attempted polyamory.  Nothing worked.  But still, we tried.  We just weren't the type of folks to give up, or at least I wasn't.  I don't know anymore how much of the end was her or me.  What I do know is that I am wholly responsible for the beginning.

Theresa and I met on an internet message board before internet dating was even a thing.  I was barely twenty, living with my parents and eager as a new puppy to connect with anyone who wasn't related to me.  She was funny and cute and exactly what I was looking for.  After a few encouraging emails and phone calls we decided to meet in person.  I drove the hour from my parents' house to her off-campus apartment, heart thundering in my chest.  I needn't have worried.  We hit it off from minute one and spent most of the night together, laughing and telling stories.  I left when the morning sun started peeking over the apartment rooftops, giddy and entirely sure of one thing:  I had found a girlfriend.

I emailed her the moment I got home, because I was young didn't understand the dangers of looking too desperate.  I was on pins and needles all day waiting for a response but nothing came.  Then the next day, then the next.  Still nothing.  My brain conjured nightmare scenarios where Theresa had been kidnapped or arrested or rushed to the hospital and couldn't get to her email to tell me how much she liked and wanted to be with me.  I didn't want to think about the possibility that I had entirely misread the situation.  I began repeatedly calling her apartment.  I left so many messages with her roommate that I could hear the exasperated sigh in his voice when he picked up the phone and it was me.  Eventually, he stopped answering altogether and I would lay there in the dark with the phone pressed to my ear, each successive ring washing over me like an icy wave of rejection.  I don't know how long this went on, but I do know I showed up on her doorstep a full two months after our first and only meeting with a wrapped present for her 22nd birthday.  It never once occurred to me that this could be easily labeled stalker behavior.  Anyway, she didn't answer the door.

At some point her roommate told me outright that Theresa didn't want to talk to me, didn't want to see me, didn't particularly want to speak to me ever again.  Finally that was enough to get through to my stubborn heart that I should really stop embarrassing myself and move on to someone else.  So I did.  I started seeing this detestable boy named James who lived a few towns over.  His parents were rich and he lived in their basement.  He had never had a job in his life.  One night when we were saying goodbye he accidentally said "I love you" and, realizing his mistake, corrected it with a fast "I mean, no, I don't love YOU, I'm just used to saying that to my mom when I get off the phone."  I had no idea what to make of that, but I remember not minding that James didn't love me.  He was a rebound guy, a distraction, and a quiet part of me was still holding out hope about Theresa.

It was probably a month later that her message showed up in my inbox, an apology that shocked the hell out of me.  In it she said she was sorry for avoiding me but that the idea of our future together just seemed so vast and terrifying that she couldn't deal.  Now I think maybe she sensed some of the incompatibilities between us and wisely stayed away, but at that point I didn't care.  Someone I wanted wanted me back, and for a lonely nerdy fat girl living in her parents' converted garage, that acceptance was a heady thing.  I responded, eagerly accepted her apology, and we made plans for her to come visit me that weekend.

She never showed.  Not that weekend, not the next three times we made plans.  Each time she'd have a vaguely plausible excuse, one I wanted so badly to believe that I simply didn't question it.  Ultimately I got her to show by playing on basic human competitiveness:  I told her about James.  The very next weekend she showed up at my door.

I watch Beth as she parks the car, carefully sliding the gear shift into place.  Despite Theresa's proclamation, I can see Beth is nothing like me.  She's better, maybe.  Better for my ex anyway.  An old familiar feeling rushes through my stomach as I realize how badly I want to make this work for them, to make up for the ten years Theresa and I struggled through.  The ten years that would never have happened if I had just left well enough alone.  I turn to Beth with my most charming smile and say, "So...that Theresa's really something, huh?"    

Prompt:  Trying too Hard

What's happening now

I'll be poeming over here for National Poetry Month.  Come see

On the Inside

List the tribes you belong to.  Talk about the experience of being in your element with your tribes.

A few years ago I was living in a lovely, expensive double studio on Hawthorne Boulevard, the heart of Portland's hipster scene, surrounded by bars and coffee shops and hangouts that were always filled with people.  There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't see some gaggle of folks wander past my window, talking and laughing as if they had known each other forever, understood each other, were the best of friends.  Meanwhile I in my studio had a dog and a cat.  If anyone, they were my tribe.  Apart from Rosie's need to be walked at all hours of the night and Willow's predilection for sleeping on my head, we understood each other.  But of course pets aren't enough when you're a person.  I so desperately envied the passers by and their ease of interaction but I had no idea how to make that happen in my life.  I tried my hardest, joining meetup groups and organizing outings to get the people I knew together.  I threw a Thanksgiving dinner party where I cooked a turkey and sat around chatting and playing UNO with some folks from work, but none of it ever really felt quite right.  I was sure I was destined to be horribly alone forever because I hadn't really found my tribe. 

A few months ago I bought this house, my first on my own, and as you do, I had a tiny housewarming party.  I invited a handful of people I really loved and trusted over for brunch and we laughed and chatted for well over three delightful hours.  It was an amazing feeling, to spend quality time in a room full of people who share so many of my interests, who see the world in many of the same ways I do.  They were my people, for sure.  And yet, that feeling of being on the outside stuck with me...still sticks with me.  That feeling of being on the outside is me, is as much a part of me as my own DNA.  I don't think being in the middle of the 'right' crowd of people, no matter how fun and engaging an experience, can ever change that.  Some of that, I think, is because we can't ever really be fully known.  In the same way that reading someone's memoir doesn't really give you access to them as a person, spending a few hours with someone here and there doesn't really show you everything they're about.  There will always be more unknown than known.

It makes me wonder, now, how many of those hipsters on Hawthorne felt separate and alone as they walked with their friends.  How many of them thought they were maybe doing it wrong because even surrounded by like-minded people they still felt somewhat on the outside?  How many of them envied the rest of us because it looked like we were in?

This post is part of The Scintilla Project.