Watching one relationship slide mercilessly down the hill towards crapsville has definitely got me walking down that painful path that is the record of all former relationships. I am not against therapy, but honestly, I don’t have time to sit still for that long (and my daughter needs a college fund), so if you’ll forgive my romantic ramblings, in an effort to gain some passionate perspective, here is a quick tour through all that has made, and broken, my heart (I have left out or changed the names…any coincidence to anyone that you might know, or to yourself, is probably purely coincidental).
Third grade. Michael. Short, baby face, don’t remember much else about him except my best friend keeps saying, “Remember Michael? We all had such a crush on him.” So he obviously was the third grade hottie. Wonder what ever happened to him? Maybe he’s still single.
Sixth grade. Brian. Again, baby face, short (I was tall and the boys didn’t catch up until later…everybody was short compared to me). He was always untying my shoelaces. This crush went off and on even into college until I ran into him, and the first thing he asked me was how my sister was.
Seventh grade. David. He liked me, so I tried to like him. Also short. My dad said, “When you’re nose to nose, his toes are in it. When you’re toes to toes, his nose is in it.” Had to think about that one for a minute…nice one, Dad. That pretty much killed the short guy thing for me. We “went out” for two days.
Eighth grade. Joe. New to school and played the saxophone. He had converse high tops. Huge crush (wasted reams of paper writing our names together…remember how fun that used to be?). Snuck out in the middle of the night with friends to leave a rose on his door. Found out the crush was mutual. We hiked to Pulpit Rock together and held hands. He called me one night and asked things like, “What’s your favorite color?” “What do you like to eat?” I told him I was going out of town the next day and never called him back (it was summer…I’m not proud to say it, but it worked).
Ninth grade. Charlie. He was in my gym class. Might have actually come to something until the Halloween dance. He bobbed over when I was dancing to New Order, and said, “Nice music.” I thought he was being sarcastic and gave him a dirty look. So much for Charlie.
Tenth grade. Oddly enough, another Charlie. Really nice guy. Really, really, nice guy. I remember laughing a lot. My mom was out of town through the majority of our relationship, but nothing ever happened worth mentioning (what a good kid). Liked him, but didn’t “like” him…the kiss of death for any romance. We weren’t able to stay friends.
Tenth grade through twelfth grade. Another Joe. This one was serious. So serious, I cried. Many times. He went to college and dumped me for a sorority girl one month before my senior prom. Yes, he married her. Yes, I’m still bitter.
Freshman year of college. I can’t even make up a name for him because his name was bizarre. So was our friendship. I was his “sideline” girl, and it never came to anything except a huge reduction in my self-esteem. I hope wherever he is, he has developed at least one very embarrassing STD.
Sophomore year of college. The big one. I was busy chasing my next door neighbor and didn’t even notice him until he noticed me. He pushed relentlessly into my life first as a friend, and then as something else. When it happened, it happened fast. We moved in together. We fought, we made up. He graduated before me and followed his wanderlust down to South America. He met someone. I met someone. And yet, we seemed incapable of letting go. We spent years moving painfully in and out of each other’s lives, trying to find a way to finally end it. It must’ve worked eventually because I haven’t heard from him in nine years.
Senior year of college. Very cute guy, very confusing relationship. Years later I caught up with him again to find him just as perplexing as an adult…but also just as cute.
Texas. My upstairs neighbor. Finally worked up the nerve to talk to him and found out that he had a girlfriend. We became friends anyway and spent hours talking by the pool. I had dreams of her being a bitch, and him realizing his mistake. We would marry. We would have beautiful kids. Life was going to be one predictable teenage romance novel. And then she moved down from Utah. She wasn’t a bitch. We became really good friends, and I began to hear about him from her point of view. Want to kill a really great crush? Get the inside perspective from his long-term girlfriend. Must’ve worked out though; they moved in together just before I moved away.
Back home again. Psycho boy. Not my type, not sure why I liked him. Put up with more than I should have, and eventually called the cops. Not one of the greater moments in my romantic history.
Husband. Not sure if I have the strength for this one. Great guy, great relationship, and then it wasn’t. The end of a marriage shakes your faith; how can anything be the way it seems after that? We bump along, thinking everything is status quo, and then find ourselves having to go back and reanalyze eight years of memories.
If there is karma in relationships, I'm not sure what I'm due for this time around. It looks as if the tally of broken hearts to hearts broken is about even, but who knows how the universe judges these things. What scares me the most is finding myself back in this same place someday, either out of a relationship that was supposed to be a lifelong one, or stuck in a lifelong relationship and realizing that it wasn’t the right one. It’s safest to stay where I am, try to find some miracle pill that would forever make me content with a very small, simple life of mother, child, dog, career, and the occasional really good Sunday night movie (that’s a tough one to hold out for). But as I once wrote in an e-mail to a friend, I used to be a dewy-eyed romantic, and even though those eyes now have crow’s feet, I probably still am.
My friend’s mom divorced around the same time as mine did. My mom hop-skip and jumped back into another relationship, but her mom never did. She lives about a two miles away from me in a wonderful little Victorian house. The furniture is very Better Homes and Gardens, her landscaping makes me embarrassed to be living in the same zip code, and she has her hardwood floors redone every two years. This is enough for her. But when my friend goes to visit, if she wants to drive her mother crazy, she moves a knick-knack just an inch to the left. Her mother knows. I don’t want to be that woman.
I guess in order to fall in love again, you have to accept that love, like anything else in life, offers no guarantees. The key is to embrace the good times and not think about when they might turn sour. I’ve often thought that Elizabeth Taylor and Zsa Zsa Gabor might have been on to something when they continued to rush blindly into one mad love affair after another. None of those relationships ever worked out for either of them, but can you imagine what it must’ve felt like to be along for the ride? And at least, when twilight comes, and everyone’s sitting around the campfire together, they have some unforgettable stories to tell.
How’s that saying go? It’s better to have loved and lost…yeah, you know where I’m going with this one. I suppose clichés become cliché because there is absolute truth to their meaning. Here’s hoping all of us have the courage to take the plunge again.
No comments:
Post a Comment