Hear Me in the Harmony

He suspected you could work yourself some good in calming your mind by thinking forward to what great pleasure it would be to hold your grandchild on your knee. But to believe such an event might actually happen required deep faith in right order. How would you go about getting it when it was in such short supply?
— from Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier

I feel like my life, relationship-wise, is a series of missed opportunities. After J and I broke up, as I’ve told you, we danced around each other a handful of times over the years, but for one reason or another, our timing was never quite right. I lost P, as you know, because when I could have been with him, I was too afraid, and when I finally wasn’t afraid anymore, it was too late. The Good Kisser told me it was timing, too – he didn’t want to be distracted from doing well in school – even if that turned out not to be true. The Dentist? I worked up the courage to ask him out, but he told me he’s seeing someone.

And now, this guy (he needs a name, but I suck at making them up) . . . he was single for SEVEN years before he met her, and they were only together on and off for about 6 months before we met. I couldn’t have met him when he was “off” with her? The universe couldn’t have kept him single for 6 more months after SEVEN years? You’ve got to be kidding me.

This kind of thing, the what-if of it all, makes me crazy. I think of myself as the kind of person who believes that things generally happen the way they’re meant to, but sometimes I wonder how that’s possible. I mean, what are the odds that you are right for the person who is right for you, that you actually manage to meet that person at some point, that you’re both single, both interested in each other at the same time – I mean, it seems like an astronomical impossibility, doesn’t it?

I suppose, though, that you can’t see how it’s all going to work out when you’re IN it, like I am now. Right now I feel like I lost something really big (and I’m not even going to listen to someone who says, “But you didn’t even have anything to lose,” because I did), something that had potential to be a good thing for me, even if it was complicated and difficult in the beginning. And because I’m not good at meeting people, the loss of the possibility of something more with someone I feel so connected to is that much larger and harder to take. I’m not the girl that can just walk away thinking, “Well, if he doesn’t want to be with me, it’s his loss; there are other fish in the sea.” I can’t. I have to let myself feel what I feel; there’s no way over it but through it for me.

But years from now, when things are different for me (please, god, let them end up different for me), I’ll probably be able to look back at this time in my life and realize that he was just Part 5.

Originality is undetected plagiarism.
— W.R. Inge

Yeah, I stole this from Lyrically. Sue me.

I am: kind of sad
I think: too much about everything
I know: that he cares about me, even if he can’t give me what I want
I want: the fairy tale
I have: good, kind, funny friends
I wish: I was braver
I hate: feeling helpless
I miss: being someone’s girlfriend
I fear: that it’s never going to happen for me
I feel: like going to the bar last night was a waste of make-up
I hear: that Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon are engaged, but I haven’t read confirmation of that anywhere
I smell: my own perfume – Colors by Benetton
I crave: touch
I search: for quotes to start each post, usually in my own collection, but sometimes by Google
I wonder: when I’m going to stop hoping it’s him whenever my phone vibrates
I regret: two things
I love: cheese
I ache: for what might have been
I care: too much about almost everything (seriously, no one but me cares if the cat bed matches the living room furniture)
I always: have Chapstick with me
I am not: going to give up
I believe: that spending time with people under the age of 5 is a cure for most of what ails you
I dance: when the feeling strikes me
I sing: all the time, even if it’s only in my head
I cry: more often than is advisable for a professional woman
I don’t always: know the right thing to say
I fight: mostly with myself
I write: less than I should – writing means you have to deal with it, and lately it’s easier to just not deal with it
I win: at the daily Sudoku in the Express
I lose: nothing, ever, but I always worry that I’m going to lose something
I never: want to be the mom whose kids always want to be somewhere else
I confuse: innocent flirtation with actual attraction
I listen: to music as often as I can
I can usually be found: at a computer, whether at work or at home
I am scared: that there won’t be enough time to say everything I want to say
I need: laundry detergent
I am happy about: buying a new bathing suit and being able to swim every day if I want to

Weekends don’t count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless.
— Bill Watterson

So here’s what’s new in the non-drama department of my life:

1. I finally bought a bathing suit this morning. My old one is miles too big and I don’t even know where it is because I haven’t worn it in over a year. They opened the pool at my apartment complex two weeks ago, and I’ve been dying to get out there. So I did. After I ran this morning (for 15 minutes without stopping!), I did my weights, then changed into my suit and did laps. (If I ride my bike later, can I call myself a triathlete?) It’s hot as hell here today, but the water was nice and cool. I had forgotten how much I love to swim!

2. The captioned movie at the theater this week is Sex and the City! I’m going to head over there in a bit and see what all the fuss is about.

3. I will get home with about 30 minutes to spare before post time at the Belmont Stakes. I don’t follow horse racing, but I do like to watch the big three races each year, and this could be a very special day. I don’t love Big Brown’s trainer (he’s no what you would call humble, is he?), but I think it’s very exciting to see if Big Brown can become the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years.

4. Steel Magnolias is on right now. God, I love this movie, but it makes me cry and cry and cry. Luckily I’ll have to leave for the movie before the really sad part, otherwise I might float away.

5. Karen keeps telling me to just go to a bar and talk to people. It strikes me as desperate – single, alone on a Saturday night, at a bar – but she says her brother does it all the time and makes tons of friends that way. Something tells me it’s different for girls, but I might give it a shot tonight. Thoughts?

6. My tomato plants seem to be growing ok. I don’t know how long it takes for fruit to come in, but they’re still alive, so I consider that a victory. Here they are:

My Alyssum seedlings have sprouted as well:

I can’t wait to see all the pretty purple flowers!

7. When I was in Greensboro a couple weeks ago, my grandmother offered me some square stools that were part of a set. I told her I would take one and see if Nate could make me a table out of it for my balcony. I stopped in Richmond on the way home on Memorial Day, and told Nate what I wanted and he made it for me in less than an hour – I love that guy! He unscrewed the seat part, measured the base, did some calculations, cut some plywood and screwed the wood onto the base. So easy. When I got it home, I stained and sealed it, and it’s perfect:

He’s very handy!

8.  By now, J and Aimee should both be back on the east coast, and I feel such a sense of relief at that, I can’t even tell you.  I had originally planned to go down to Richmond today to see Aimee and her family, but they’re moving into their new place this weekend, so things are very busy.  We will do something soon, but just knowing she’s so close makes me feel glad.

There are few things sadder in this life than watching someone walk away after they’ve left you, watching the distance between your bodies expand, until there’s nothing but empty space and silence.
— Jane, in Someone Like You

Can you call in sick with a broken heart?

Oh, I knew he wasn’t going to come here and tell me he’s left her because he’s madly in love with me, but still, some small part of me hoped that maybe . . . And of course he’s not going to cheat on her – he’s not that guy, and I wouldn’t want to be with him if he was. And like he said, I deserve better than to be someone’s other woman. But I feel so sad, and I don’t know what to do.

On the way here, in his car, he said, “The more I think about what I want to say, the more I realize there isn’t that much to say.” I said, “Are you nervous? I’m nervous.” He said no. We passed most of the ride in silence.

When we got here, I changed clothes and offered him a beer. He declined; I opened one, but never took a sip. He started: “I can’t. I won’t,” he said. He apologized for sending the wrong signals (which he did, often), and I apologized for trying to charm him away from her (which I did, often). He said he didn’t want to tell me some platitude about how if things were different, even though it’s true. I told him I’d tried for a long time to make these feelings go away because I knew it couldn’t end the way I wanted it to. He said he’d try harder to be a better friend now that there’s no underlying meaning in everything. I told him it might take me a couple of days to feel like I could talk to him again.

I did not say all of the things I’ve been practicing in my head for the last two weeks – that I think I might love him, that I want to kiss him, that I always want to be wherever he is. She is not pregnant, which was my biggest fear because it’s the only thing that’s not fixable if he wanted it to be (“I don’t want to fix it,” he said). He is, I’m sure, not going to send me flirty text messages anymore, and I am sorry about that. I liked getting them; they made me feel good about myself, and they made me feel special. I only cried a little while he was here; now I can’t stop.

I don’t know what I expected, and I know it’s crazy, but right now, in this moment, I feel like if he doesn’t or can’t love me, then I am going to be alone forever. Because I don’t know how to meet anyone else, I am not good at it. He was my friend and we rode the train together, which is how we got to know each other, and I felt like I could be myself around him, and there is no one else here that I trust that much. And every time I saw a couple out somewhere, I imagined us. I wanted to hold his hand.

I had thought from the beginning of our friendship that we were inevitable, but I was wrong. And it’s my own fault. It isn’t like he lied to me – although it did take two and a half months of riding the train together once a week for him to tell me he had a girlfriend, and that was only after he’d asked me to have a drink with him. But from that point on, I was on notice, and I still let myself develop feelings for him, and now here I am, sitting at the computer in tears, pouring my heart out to strangers.

“You drove all the way over here to say four words,” I said. “They needed to be said,” he answered.

I don’t know what to do. I’m sad.

Everyone has a gripping stranger in their lives, a stranger who unwittingly possesses a bizarre hold over you. Maybe it’s the kid in cut-offs who mows your lawn or the woman wearing White Shoulders who stamps your book at the library – a stranger who, if you were to come home and find a message from them on your answering machine saying, “Drop everything. I love you. Come away with me now to Florida,” you’d follow them.
— Douglas Coupland

Holy unexpected turn of events, Batman! I got a surprising, butterfly-creating, smile-inducing, ego-boosting text message from this guy as I was walking home from the bus this evening, after riding the train home with him. I’m not spilling the details, because they’re just for me, but let’s just say I wasn’t wrong about him.  The message doesn’t change anything – it still can’t happen, because he’s spoken for at the moment (and I was intentionally vague about it in my earlier post because it feels like a terrible thing to admit, wanting another girl’s boyfriend), but . . . I’m not wrong.

His message has done three things: First, it’s opened the door to the conversation I’ve been wanting to have with him, but couldn’t quite figure out how to start. I almost asked him on the train tonight to come over later so I could tell him something, but I chickened out, so this has solved that problem – because, in a subsequent message, he asked to get together to talk about it. Second, it’s relieved me of my worry that I was reading too much into everything he said and did, which has been a big problem of mine my whole life – when I want something so much, I convince myself that the other person feels the same way, and so often I’m wrong and get hurt. Third, it’s reassured me that neither of us want whatever these feelings are to ruin our friendship – he prefaced his message by saying that he hoped he wasn’t crossing a line.

And so, tomorrow, we talk. I’m not working tomorrow (because I’m going to Baltimore to Johns Hopkins to see if they can’t find something wrong with me), but he’s coming by after work. I’m excited, and relieved, and a little sad, and nervous – I went to the gym to run to work off the nervous energy, but it didn’t really work. I’ve been furiously cleaning my already clean apartment (he’s never been here before) and trying to figure out what one wears to hear the man she thinks she loves tell her he has feelings for her but can’t be with her. If I’m totally honest with you, I’m also fantasizing that everything has miraculously worked itself out on his end by the time he shows up here and we can have a movie moment. It’s not going to happen, but a girl can dream, right?

Whatever happens, it’s all out in the open, which is the biggest hurdle, I think. And the best advice I got in this whole thing was to tell him how I feel and tell him to look me up if he’s ever single again, and then stop waiting around for him to pick me. And that’s my plan for tomorrow. We’ll see what happens.