Lessons in Honesty

My phone buzzes twice; I pull it out of my pocket. Breath held as I long-await a response of no significance and too much significance, with too much space in the between. "Hey I love you," the screen reads. Tears well up and threaten to spill. Amid these strangers and their casual conversations.

"It must be more than an interest," he comments, "you must have a devotion." I think of the years wrapped up in, held by, rocked by, steadied by this quiet love. This quiet love that holds my hand and leads the way when all I see is the chaos of my life swirling, when I close my eyes and wait to collapse. Should I, I should, shout this from the mountain tops.? Or at least, these days, to myself in a strong whisper: I love I want I care I am devoted. Honest declaration. If only in a strong whisper. Begin here.

After years, this is, perhaps, the only place I can begin. This is, perhaps, the safest place to begin.

It had been lifetimes since cologne-crushed tears fell. Burning, hot and acidic. A litmus test that would read: eyes diverted and hands dropped, the heart that has clawed its way into the throat plummets - falls into vast empty space.

To be shocked by these acid tears, this unexpected litmus test result - I have been eagerly dishonest with myself. A self-preservation method with an acidity level that eats away faster than realized. I didn't realize. Any of it.

She, too many miles away, practiced in letting me cry until the red rash appears on the tops of my cheeks and supporting my weight and my head on her shoulder, feels just that - too many miles away. A seasoned expert on me, she knows it is coming before I do. She holds my honesty when I am not strong enough to carry it.

I'll announce in a strong whisper to an empty room that I am building a career in a field I love. I love I want I care I am devoted. Honestly. Tangled or purposefully intertwined, the rest I cannot claim in a whisper to an empty room. I'm drowning in the divide between no significance and too much significance, filled with my own tears, into which I tripped and fell because I wasn't paying close enough attention. To my heart as it squeezed up and out of my rib cage trying to get to his. To how high it had climbed. To how far down of a drop it faced.

"Hey I love you," she texted me because she knew and she knows. And now, at least I know.  All of it.

Honesty and Something More

I practiced smiling at my reflection in the store window before I walked through the doors. It looked strained and felt tight and I worried that it would never feel natural again. The night temperature dropped below seasonable; I assumed I looked ridiculous in a winter jacket on a mid October evening. I walked in that evening and watched the floor numbers rise without caring enough about the tight smile and the unseasonable winter coat and the sense that this evening mattered. I dismissed and dismissed and dismissed.

I knew his face, his stature before the elevator doors opened. His eyes met mine on a warm June night during a rare break in the summer rain. On the outside beer garden deck where I drank a glass of wine ordered by a man who didn't have to ask while I sat with my best and my best and my best and still had it all together. Together but restless. Ready to run, ready to break free. Ready for something else, something more. Before the rain stole the summer, before I learned to turn on the faucet to muffle sobs each afternoon, before I felt the sting of failure and dark nights of lost. Before the tight smile, before the cold October night, his eyes found mine on a June night from across the deck. I turned away and smiled. And sank gently into the warm night air.

I spotted him from across the room when I stepped out of the elevator and he confirmed when he stood up. I dropped my napkin right before or right in the middle or right after introductions. He quickly swiped it up for me and handed it across the table as I took a deep breath and quickly tried to assess whether or not I cared and how tight my smile felt. I didn't have the heart for any of it; I dismissed and dismissed and dismissed.

The minutes and the tightness melted away. I thought of my reflection in the dark window before I walked in the doors. The silhouette and stretched smile. What's really there now, below and below and below? I couldn't answer, so I talked about everything else. Honest with him, but hardly with myself. As shelled as I felt, he put me at ease. Calm and safe, despite and in spite - an admirable feat for that season.

When we looked over my shoulder at the empty room and realized it was time to leave, we made a detour from the elevator on the way down, stopping on a floor straight from a horror movie. I thought about running. Faster and faster down the long hall until we landed in a heap of laughter and hiccups at the end. Instead, I smiled quietly and dismissed the thought, that act of freedom. But the smile stayed, as I drove out of the parking garage that night and slipped quietly into bed.

And I went about my week.

The second night I wanted pull his sweatshirt over my head, still zipped up, and walk down by the pier. I wanted to jump into the water without feeling its chill and dunk myself under and under and under until I could breath again. I wanted to crawl into his car and blast the heat until I fell asleep with my hand over his heart. Instead we went to the quaint place I suggested for drinks and sat at a tiny table and looked everywhere but at each other and sighed and both went home and said that this probably wasn't going to work. I said it out loud and crawled into bed believing in nothing more than black nail polish and the sound of the pouring rain, but he said it directly to me shortly after. And I said, yes, that is fine, and I thought yes, that is fine.

And I got to work breathing life into my own lungs. (It has taken years.)

My junior year of college, a boy called me out on my beliefs not aligning with my heart. At that point in time, no one had navigated my heart better than he and somewhere, somehow he found a key, a door, and a lock that matched. It knocked the wind out of me, the fact that he was right.

Alignment has never been my specialty. (It has been years.)

I have done the work. I have cried the tears and written the words and unearthed the buried parts and healed the cuts and spent the time and asked the hard questions and packed the bags and danced the steps and sang the lyrics and took deep breaths and spoke honestly and honored my values and let go and held on tightly.

I know now.

I believe in hard work. I believe in kindness. I believe in words. I believe in plans and savings accounts. Emergency money in the glove compartment and checking twice to make sure the iron is off. I believe in saying thank you sincerely. I believe in health insurance and car insurance and any kind of insurance, really. I believe in the practical, the rational.

I believe in sunsets over the Pacific ocean. I believe in coffee each morning and in saying goodnight before bed. I believe in holding hands with my friends and writing emails at midnight. Hooded sweatshirts and maple candy. Full moons and wishes on shooting stars. I believe in tears, tears from laughter and tears from sorrow. I believe in the magic of everyday.

How easy it is to believe in the practical, rational, everyday. How easy it is for me to be honest about these beliefs. Honest to you. Honest to me.

After those chilly October nights, our paths crossed again not so long ago. I was surprised, and I got goose-bumps and tongue-tied and I grabbed her hand. Two years later, on a Saturday night with friends turned family, I had an easy smile, a light heart, and a sharp memory. I know now, what is below, and below, and below. And I wished I could have suggested a walk to the pier and a promise not to dive into the water. He would have said no. And I would have said that’s fine. I believe in the rational as much as I believe in the magic of everyday.

I found myself face-to-face with him the other night. In the corner of a dark, abandoned warehouse where he sat on an old, broken chair and I perched on the edge of a torn blue sofa. I believed it too late and inconsequential, but I took a deep breath and emptied honesty into the hopeless space. I started from the beginning and told him everything. And then I told him something more. Without hope, I released, my eyes on his hands until the words stopped and I looked up. His eyes met mine. Full of everything I hadn’t known to hope for.

I woke up.

I woke up uncertain of where I was. Certain I had been floating on a cloud of nirvana and uncertain of anything else. What had been a dream and what had been true? The sky grey, before the sun broke through.

There is something more. I believe in something more. I believe in June nights, when I find myself  smiling to myself and sinking softly into the warm night. I have to start being honest about that, if not with anyone else, then at least with myself. I have to align my heart with my beliefs. I have to be honest that I was not surprised our paths crossed again a few weeks ago. Perhaps that’s rational, perhaps that’s something more. And maybe, I don’t have to decide which.

I believe in more than black nail polish and pouring rain. I believe in the rational, I believe in the magic of everyday, and I believe in something more.

You're Not Really A Loner...

"You're not really a loner. Sometimes, I think you just play one on TV. You're actually very social."

He's right. He's good like that. He always calls it as he sees it. And after 8+ years, he's seen a lot from me.

We all worry about my personal life.

"In Vermont," he said, "you almost had to be alone." I was often alone when I lived in Vermont. On some December nights, I streamed Delilah on my laptop for company and the version of Silver Bells I knew as a child. I wrote for hours on Sunday evenings. I coasted down the side of mountains on dark roads with only my thoughts. But. The memories that arrive the fastest are the evening gatherings under the rising moon with blueberry pie and the nights grouped around the television placing bets on Survivor. I vividly remember nights falling asleep on her futon to the sounds of Finding Nemo. How many times did I try to stay awake for that movie and fail miserably? So many times. I spent weekdays in our one-room office with people who knew to pause after delivering a joke - it would take me a few seconds to burst out in laughter. I had a place down the hall in his office where I could go when the world stopped making sense. Where I could go at 6:30 am on a Tuesday morning, shaking with shock and still in my pajamas.

"And in Maine you always had someone around." It's true. Our 1L classroom hit capacity at about 20 people fewer than we had in our class. I had an attached-at-the-hip partner-in-crime for most of law school. She cultivated my love of coffee and we worked together through every code book that came our way. We hardly slept but when we did we could still give a quality pep talk mid REM cycle. We kept each other going. I had a best friend who would lay with me and giggle on the hard wood floor and who would show up at my doorstep without my asking on dark nights. A best friend from college who reminded me that I was still, first and foremost, a person rather than a law student. I had roommates that became friends and friends that became roommates. Friends that became family. But I also built walls high and thick in Maine. I learned fortress architecture along with case law. Things-I-Can't-I-Focus-On-Right-Now filled the moat and too much jumped ship before I could spot anything from the third floor of the law library. If I had know, I would have said to hold on. I am coming. These books, these bricks, they block everything.

"I worry that you are isolating yourself in DC. I know there are people in DC you are hesitating to reach out to." Am I? Or am I just playing isolated on TV? Would it be different if I had a ring on my finger? Would time alone mean isolation then? Independent and single doesn't answer anything, though. At certain times of day, I worry too. At least when he phrases it like that. But I do have a personal life. I have spent five of the past seven weekends with people I love. My weekends spill over into the weeks and my phone battery drains. I have trips planned and emails still waiting for a response. My co-workers and I can exchange a glance and burst into laughter and about each other - we know enough, we know so much. I have loose plans with people here I look forward to seeing. I'm hesitant, yes. But I feel silly telling him that I scramble to find time alone, time to take a breath.

Five years from now, when the wedding dresses hang in the back of closets and the diaper genie sells for best offer at the neighborhood tag sale and crayon drawings hang on the refrigerator... it's those days I worry about. Do the moments I love now, hot morning coffee in cafe corners and silent nights writing, the moments I spend alone but not lonely, do they mean I am building thicker walls? Can I blame it first and foremost on this career - and how often I do - when so many from that "ivory" tower have walked the aisle and I'm still standing alone? Did they teach us that a career is a dichotomy of a personal life? Did I learn that lesson wrong or too late? How is it that just now I have to face it, name it, adjust to it? When in the mountains and in the library, I had both and neither but never this worry.

And now. Not enough time for life and love and career, always out of order and all three just out of reach.

If There Is A Frantic Race To 30 With A Ring, I'll Be By The Tortoise's Side.

When he asked me where I saw myself in 5 years, I said 3 am eating ice cream, in my own condo, watching the weather channel in the dark. My honesty is independent but I saw his face flicker. "You?" I retorted. He said Saturday morning, at soccer practice with the kids. We are both a few years short on the mortgage and soccer practice, but when the wind wakes me at 4 am, I roll over and check the weather.com radar. The left side of my bed is empty. My Saturday morning rituals - the metro ride, ipod, coffee shop - fill and sustain. Months later, I let him decorate our library with dark wood furniture, while we sat in traffic. Years later, I finally matched our wrinkled hands on a porch swing at sunset, while we sat across from each other at a Barnes and Noble.


I ordered a bottled beer, one I can't even remember the name of now, maybe Miller Lite, and drank it slowly, hoping he wouldn't notice. No such luck. He asked if I always drank Miller Lite. I knew when I didn't feel myself flush and saw my hand waiving in the air, marking my nonchalant answer, "Oh, if I'm driving, yes." I didn't fidget and I had all the best answers, but I kept scanning the room hoping to see another's face. He walked me to my car after I told him I had to finish a paper. On a Saturday night. He asked me out again and I said yes. For my best interest, I said yes. I went home and finished that paper. I fell asleep thinking of U.S. Korean War policy.


I don't say yes anymore. I dart out out of check-out lines and dash to my car. I take the number but never call. I politely say no, thanks, as if asked if I would like a glass of water. "No, thank you."

I know eyes that can halt a spinning room. I know smiles that hold my breath. I know weak-kneed cliches.

Plural. I've looked across tables and thought to myself, "I could fall in love with you."

I've spoken in nonsensical non-sequiturs as an only alternative to introverted this-is-important-muteness but not been able to shift my gaze away. And that gaze has been met and held for hours, days, and years. I've walked in wind-blown, disheveled, hiccuping, nauseous, tear stained, feverish, and exhausted. And I've been scooped up and nestled in. I've sent late-night emails with words that couldn't face the sun and made statements framed by afternoon logic that would bend at just a glance from the moon. And I've had those buried truths sifted from the hours - understood and valued. By more than one.

I always do it. I write the letters, I say the words, I walk the flights of stairs, I drive the miles, I press send. The few times I haven't I regret. The times I have I'll always know.

I say no to invitations these days. I don't need the dinner reservation or the bottle of red wine. Just find my eyes. I'll know.

These days I worry less about worn-in independence and plans that only accommodate one. I know now that 3 am scoops of ice cream and the flicker of the weather channel doesn't mean that I won't return to bed to fall asleep with a finger across his chin. I worry less about my inability to make small-talk and know that some conversations can be held without words. I worry less about tidy placement and clean lines. Dictionary definitions, maps, and watches belong on shelves. Our lives are fluid and run together under the strength of the current. I'm not worried that I won't be swept up again, someday.

How To Get A Date

Move to a city. Lament Monday through Friday that you are never dressed appropriately. Worry that you will never fit in. Forget all this on Saturdays. Get dressed in only the clothes easiest to locate in your closet. Wash your face but not your hair. Or wash your hair but don't brush it. Skip the make-up. Hat optional. Slip into your sneakers without untying them. Make it to the metro just in time to sit for fifteen minutes. Curse single-tracking. Turn up the ipod to drown out the kids. Fall in love with a song. Hit the repeat button all day. Let it move your feet, move your lips, swing your hips. Forget to worry that someone might see. Get lost in the crowd. Find a corner of a coffee shop. Sip slowly. Write with fervor. Tell stories of the past - they're still here with you. Capture the present. Create the future. Keep writing. Move from the corner and out the door. Say goodbye to the barista. Explore. Use the lens. Look for the details. Focus on the moments. Lose yourself in the process. Find yourself in late afternoon.

Decide to take an early evening nap. Head for the metro. Keep that song on repeat. Look up when he says "excuse me." Say yes or say no to a dinner invitation. Make sure to say thank you. Put your earphones back on.

Or decide to have that second cup of coffee. Head for a coffee shop. Sit at the window. Sip slowly. Try to write. Get distracted by the people walking the streets. Say yes through the window to buying a newspaper supporting and written by the homeless. Thank the vendor for coming inside. Put the newspaper in your bag to read later. Return to your words. Be gentle on yourself when they don't arrive at all. Smile when he sits beside you. Answer when he asks about the newspaper. Squirm when he asks about your writing. Tell him he's right when he says, "I don't know you, but you have a lot in your head. I can tell." Ask questions that make you feel intelligent when you're interested in what he is saying. Ask questions that make you feel dumb when you don't understand what he is saying. Don't think about what you'll say if he asks you to dinner. Even when he asks what you are doing later that night. Tell him you might be going grocery shopping. Mean it. Ask him to tell you about living in Paris. Let him give you his number. Make sure to say thank you. Even if you're not going to use it. Put your earphones back on.

Head home.

Hallowed Out and Lit Up

(photo (and ghost!) by Nicole, but bottom right jack-o-lantern by me! )

The temperature drops after dark, after dinner, on the walk back to the library. Chili spice still hot on my breath vaporizes and vanishes. I trip on the mismatched bricks, too busy searching for gum to notice. My toes too numb to care. Turn the corner to see the Cat in the Hat and a toilet paper mummy. I shove my hands into my pockets and remind myself how much I dislike Halloween. Keep my eyes on the law school, my fingers wrapped around the bags of candy, count the pieces through the plastic, one, two, three, four...

Front door locked, back door open, bright lights, and concrete stairs. The table under the clock is always empty. Except for the times I’m always sitting there. They’ll stop by to say hello, as they make their way to the bathroom, the front stairs, the book that we’ll never pick up again but need for this assignment. When it’s quiet, when my nose has stopped running, when my cheeks are rosy but not raw, I pop a found piece of gum and head upstairs. To the quiet corner where I’ll deliver the treat-sized candy and my fears. We’ll murmur quietly even though the floor holds only us and the hum of the heaters blowing lukewarm air. I sit on the floor, against the metal shelf, looking up as he smiles down.  Looking at my shoes as I wonder how much is mine to take. Quietly, I’m breathing in and out. Hallowed out and filled.

***

I skip out of the early round of daylight trick-or-treaters, promising to return for the late-night stragglers. Grab a handful of candy and forget how much I dislike Halloween. The air, my car, and I are all warmer than expected. I keep the heat off and that song on repeat. It plays two and a half times before I’m parking my car in the back of the building, running up the stairs, and tossing my books onto the carrel’s top. Flop into the chair. Get up and move the bucket under the dripping ceiling. Think about using my own carrel rather than theirs. See their smiling faces and mine in photographs taped to the back of the carrel and decide against it. In the next couple of hours I inhale most of my snatched candy, manage to get only three shades of highlighter between my fingers, and nearly lose my appetite by the time he comes down to get me for dinner.

If the frozen smiles of my friends bear a warning, I don’t see it. I shove open the doors on our way down and scowl when he tells me I need more protein. We both know how heavy that door is. I’m stronger than I look - I’m still walking this hallway, aren’t I? I’m still here. Inhaling candy and dinner and him, spitting out the new wedding ring. Sitting across from, next to, in front of... his foot always on the rung of my chair. We’re bickering and he teases and we’re relentless, as I wonder how much I am breaking. I’m carefully within the lines but with abandon. I’m reckless with only that which I can claim as mine, and I leave everything else alone.

Until I’m walking through the dark parking lot, spooked by ghosts of the future, and I lay my head down on the steering wheel, careful not to blow the horn - although I’d like to wrap my arms around it and squeeze. I want to hear the horn blaring, and alerting, and breaking the silence and my smile.

Tears don’t come, so I drive home slowly. Pick out a dragon and a princess on separate streets and pair them together in my head. Fated to be together until I realize it is the prince and the princess who have the destiny. It’s the dragon who breaths the fire. I laugh or scream, I can’t tell which, as “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” clicks back to its beginning.

They’re sitting on the stairs to the driveway in the dark. Drinking pumpkin beer, with a sound system set up - notes and screeches, and ghosts, and chains echoing into the night. Harmonizing with mine. I’m still somewhere in that lost land between tears and laughter, but the night’s still warm and with them I know I am safe. So, I join them on the stairs, my hand in the candy bowl, reeling in the rest of myself from the dark. Counting the pieces of candy through the plastic, one, two, three, four... but I’m gritting my teeth and forcing my breaths in and out, hallowed and full.  Structured, controlled breaths, and perfect posture on the steps, even though I’m bursting and soaring and screaming and weeping in silence. Even though I’m out there somewhere scattered or shattered or whole in the dark.

So I get up and I start to dance. And they let me. Alone in the dark driveway, I’m collecting pieces of myself, scooping and reaching and bending and stretching. Until the hour comes when the street is empty and the kids who never came never will. Until I’m panting, and they gently collect me, and bring me inside. Where I fall into my bed with all of my pieces finally mine again. At least until he and I crash through them together once again - scattered, shattered, and whole. Hallowed out and lit up.

"This Will Probably Rank High (If Not #1) On The List Of The Weirdest Emails You Have Ever Received"

["I worked in the Medical Records Department (HIM Specialist II - aka professional copy machine attendee - ha) during summer breaks from college.  One afternoon, a man came in to sign a release form.  We were busy during that lunch hour, but I remember trying my best to give him my undivided attention and to help him fill out the form.  He came back the next day with a package for me.  (Yes, this was weird behavior.)  My supervisor called hospital security, and they swept it away without a second glance in my direction.  I found out later that afternoon that he had written me a letter and made me a mixed tape. (Do those even exist anymore?)  He said something to the effect of "I really appreciated your kindness and help the other day.  Not often do I run into such simple kindness, and I made you this tape to express my gratitude."  My supervisor was pleased with me, security was freaked out, and I had to wear my badge turned upside down for the rest of the summer.  I never got to see the contents of the package or read the letter. 

The next morning, a hospital administrator called me into her office and asked how I felt about the event.  I told her I felt badly that we live in a world where somebody tries to express gratitude and kindness, and it comes off as dangerous and unstable.  I think it is important to tell a person when s/he has made an impact on you.  I told her that I understand his actions were extreme and improper, but where is the line drawn exactly? She told me that she agreed.  She told me that she, too, thought it is important to acknowledge when people made an impact on you.  She said she thought it is important to take that risk.  

I think of that man more often than expected, and I often wonder if he knows that he inadvertently had an impact on me, also. (Ha! Yeah right, I know.)  Over time, the conversation with the hospital administrator stands out more and the potential-absolute-craziness (the check-into-the-behavioral-health-unit-two-doors-down type of craziness) wears off.  I'm telling you this story, because it is where I am coming from when I write this email: I think it is important to tell a person when s/he has made an impact on you."]

And then I proceed to write an email to a guy who would never expect it coming about how he has no idea but he made an impact on my life.  And then I promptly hit the DELETE button, because I'm pretty sure I wrote THIS SAME MESSAGE to a boy I liked when I was FOURTEEN YEARS OLD (and one at fifteen, and one at sixteen, and some skewed version of this in college).  Only I wrote it MORE THAN TEN YEARS AGO on a college-lined sheet of notebook paper and not in the draft folder of my gmail account.  I have some strange mixture of pride and humiliation that I am still determined to write emails after midnight with the keen desire to say, "HEY, YOU'RE IMPORTANT."  I still have this sneaking suspicion that the recipients needs to hear this.  Like I said - a strange mixture of pride and humiliation.  But I don't want to live in that world where an expression of kindness comes off as dangerous and unstable.  I don't know if rectifying that happens solo in "my own world" by sending a note of kindness, or if rectifying that happens in "the real world" by not sending a note of kindness.  So for now, I'm keeping that email in the trash, and I will consider writing a very short  "heeyyy, what's up?  hope all is going well in your world" email at 2pm tomorrow.  Just to be on the safe side.  I'll probably write "just a hello" in the subject line.  Honestly, I'll probably hit delete on that one too, because what I really want to say is "I THINK YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS AND I DEFINITELY NEED TO SAY THIS: YOU ARE IMPORTANT IN MY LIFE."

Don't worry, I'll go ahead and tag this post "teen angst" immediately...  But seriously - where's the line?

Maybe He's Right

He says that I'm looking for somebody to devour me.  Maybe he's right.  I'm looking for somebody to look at me the way you do.  From a distance.  Across the room, the table, the empty space between us that feels like miles. Even when it's not. Because you've found my eyes.  Holding them.  Like that.  Only, I'm not that cliche 'swimming in your eyes', because that requires movement.  Bodily functions that I can't manage, because I'm held. Still. Locked.  Eye to eye.  With you.  Drowning, in the unromantic way.  Shallow breathing, a scream that can't escape.  The room also becomes still.  I'm reminding myself to breath in and out, but my lungs have stopped expanding.  Unable to look away.  Until I do.  Scared to look your way again.  Until I can't think of anything else, my muscles weak and tight, and I want to laugh because I feel 'weak in the knees', but my muscles are too tight for that type of release.  I gasp for breath but the loud room stifles any noise that would have escaped my half-open mouth.  So it turns out to be not a gasp at all.  But a smile.

The room spins carelessly now, and I can't find a soul who noticed the pause in time.  Chaos until I'm drawn to you.  Again.  I'm trying to weigh consequences, but the syllables of the word trip me up, and I'm looking in your direction.  Again.  Scared to find your eyes.  Scared to feel the room stop moving again.  Scared that all the fingers, of all the people, will point at me.  For stopping time.  For interrupting their dance step and the band's high note.  Scared that your eyes will no longer be there.

You're moving in my direction. It's hardly fast enough.  But too fast all at once, my stomach back-flipping, and my fingers tingling.  I want to run; it should be away from you, but I'm certain that if I moved a muscle it would be in your direction, so the best thing I can do is stand still.  While the room blurs and you come into focus.  Your hand on the dip above my hip.  Gently, firmly.  Steady.  Your mouth on mine. 

He says I'm looking for somebody to devour me.  Maybe he's right.

From the Department of Internet Dating

It rained the day I painted my nails black. Hard, pounding rain. Against the screen in the windows, sliding down the panes, splattering into dark mud... We sat on the couch, nursing colds, disappointment, and lonely failure, together. She slid the nail polish brush over her nails while flipping through a magazine. The television blinked in the background. I watched her almost-absent-minded strokes fill with blood red color. I watched the rain stream down the window. I took a deep breath and willed a new beginning, a new identity, a new life that knew nothing of the past three years. A life that knew nothing of professional identity and personal sacrifice. I walked to the kitchen and rummaged through her nail polish collection, grabbing the darkest color I could find. She tossed me a magazine, and I concentrated on long strokes, round edges, and the sound of the rain. A match.com ad came on the television, and she threatened to sign me up. She always did. I always rolled my eyes. This time, I said OK.

She made my profile for me. Checked the boxes, answered the questions, uploaded the photos. Most days she knows me better than I know myself. I get lost in the maze of quiet, layered conversations ongoing in my head. I chose a user name, and she completed the rest. I watched with my head on her shoulder as she easily navigated the questions, identifying my most patterned behaviors and personality traits. I wondered how I manage to complicate things so much in my head; she had all my answers so easily, but I supposed she had never heard the options, choices, don'ts, doubts, worries, and wonder. It all must be so much clearer without some of that white noise and shrilled screeching. She hit submit, and we waited for verification. I waited for verification - I waited for an unknown computer to say, "Yes, go ahead, you are suitable for dating."

I can't say that I hated it from the start, but it didn't feel like the unexpected smile that comes when when someone new catches my eye. Or the way silent intrigue scans for the absence of a wedding band, hopeful. It didn't feel like soft sweatpants at the end of a long day, a sigh of relief, the waiting is over and the best part is about to begin. Instead the muscle across my shoulders tightened with each click of the next number on the bottom right of the page. The same way I browse for bathing suits every other summer - wrong fit, wrong fit, wrong fit - I flew through pages and profiles.

Inevitably, she stopped me. I knew she would. She slid the computer from my lap, reminded me to have an open mind, and hit the "wink" button on somebody's profile. She navigated every initial interaction I had on that site. I'd take it from there, of course. Reply to messages, delete messages, and judge, judge, judge every face that popped up on the screen. I called upon skills I learned during the summer after seventh grade, when we would flip through the yearbook, critiquing the person behind each face. I hated it at twelve; I grew to hate it again at twenty-six. Wrong fit, wrong fit, wrong fit, but I'll try to charm you with my words, part with my phone number, and agree to meet you out - because I have an open mind while I silently judge, judge, judge.

The muscle across my shoulders never relaxed. I never figured out how to blend my old life with the new. I was a wrong fit for my current life. He popped up on the screen the evening I decided to delete my account. I can't say that I smiled or felt hopeful. It was still internet dating; I was still nursing disappointment from weeks prior; my life and I still didn't match. But I didn't think wrong fit. I took my computer downstairs to her, undecided as to whether I would show her his face or tell her I was deleting my account. I showed her his face, she hit the wink button, I promised myself I would keep my account for twenty-four more hours, he responded.

Of course, this story doesn't have a fairytale ending. It doesn't have a fairytale ending because I don't believe in fairytales, and I don't believe in internet dating, and I don't believe in much from those days other than black nail polish and the sound of pouring rain. I didn't want to spend time writing back and forth with him. I wanted to spend as much time as possible away from that website and my judging, my pained shoulders, and the identity I can paint with words. He suggested we meet and I didn't hesitate to say yes, although I knew I would still miss the unexpected smile, the hopeful intrigue, and the relieved comfort.

We met for a drink. He showed up with a mirror. The type of mirror that reflected back at me every wrong fit I had tried on for the past month. We talked for three hours while I tried to navigate my misfits while soaking up everything that he had already figured out and that I struggled to grasp. I smiled more in those three hours than I had in the past three weeks. That says a lot and not very much at the same time. He asked me out again, and I agreed.

I spent the week cultivating my new life. He showed up with the mirror again. I hated what I saw in it. I couldn't navigate my misfits well this time. My inner monologue carried on at higher volume than our conversation. I went home and stripped down to only my black nail polish. I cried the way I should have cried the day the rain slammed its fists against the window pane. I deleted my match.com account.

He told me a week later that he didn't think things were going to work out between us. He said he didn't have enough time to get to know me. I wanted to tell him that was part of the everything he had already figured out and that I struggled to grasp. I wanted to tell him that I know how long it takes to get to know me, I'm walking that path now. It's a path worth traveling down. The view is best from the center of the woods, among the the options, choices, don'ts, doubts, worries, and wonder. I promise. But I didn't tell him that, and I don't think I will get a chance. Because I don't believe in fairytales, I don't believe in internet dating, and I don't believe in much from those days other than black nail polish and the sound of pouring rain.

Fever and Chills

The sheet twists around me, co-mingling with my thrashing legs until I finally, fully wake with near desperate need to use the bathroom. Fever clings so tightly to my aching skin that removing the wrought sheet from my legs sends fire and ice up my back and out my finger tips. I crawl to the end of my bed with only a split-second thought tossed to the bottle of tylenol sitting on my dresser. I don't have the energy to stop and stand/ untwist the top and tip the bottle over/ shake gently until one pill and then another falls out/ take a sip of warm, stale water and swallow. With a passing glance at the bottle, I stand. Up. On. My. Own. Feet.

The blood rushes from my head down to my feet. Painfully determined, I open the door to my room feel the wave of cold air wash over my fire and ice body. In an instant I am scared I am going to pass out, and I am certain that I am going to throw up. Panic mixes with my bladder's desperation and I drop to my hands and knees on the living room carpet. This is the point where the healthy version of myself would dissolve into high-pitched squeaky laughter at the visual of myself on my hands and knees hovering above the wine-colored dining room carpet. But the three-day-high-fever-no-end-in-sight version of myself feels weak, and scared, and betrayed.

The bathroom door is shut. I shut my eyes and home that it's N in there. I'll scare the boys if they find me this way. N will come out, scoop up my frail body and help me to the bathroom without needing explanation or smile or front of an independence I no longer remember how to feel.

My stomach barrel rolls. I can't wait. I crawl into the kitchen over the cold tiles certain that the handful of crackers I ate last night will make a re-appearance. The tupperware bowls are in the bottom cabinet. I'm certain I am exaggerating, but I know what the thermometer reads when the tylenol wears off, and I'm scared. And so cold. Shaking uncontrollably on the kitchen floor.

The bathroom door opens and I call out N's name without the energy to hope that it is her. It is. I don't worry about scaring her, even if I am. My panic subsides, but the shaking does not. She helps me to the bathroom and waits outside the door. The nausea is gone, but the shaking remains. She walks me back to my room; my arms draped around her shoulders. We pass by the thermostat. 57 degrees. Our heat broke in the night, again. I'm almost relieved. A high fever and an arctic apartment - no wonder I'm shaking. N puts me to bed, opens the tylenol bottle with ease, and produces two for me to swallow. I can feel the heat emerge as I open my mouth and I want to wonder why I am so cold when my body temperature is so high.

N pulls the covers back up around my shoulders. I want to say "thank you" and "I love you" and "you're my person" - that line from Grey's that I don't really understand because I haven't seen enough episodes - and "you're my Carrie" when she comes to help a flu laden Samantha, and "I hoped it was you in the bathroom"... but I'm shaking, worried that I'll never stop, she's gone, and I'm falling back to sleep.

These April Days

[originally written 4/09]

Powerpoprock in a hip, bright, warm venue. Ginger ale in hand, surrounded by twentysomethings on the crowded dance floor. "Have you met..." and "Who are you here with?" Sans ring on the left hand, increasingly friendly, small talk over loud music, "Are you from here?" until he abruptly walks away. Apparently, an hour drive from one small city to another overwhelms any possible interest. Merely amused, I laugh out loud, a chuckle carried away on guitar strings and belting lyrics. Friends on stage and another in the audience, I'm not here to meet my mr. right. Or my mr. right now.

*****

Crisp, cool, night air with a promise of spring, and the sound of the crashing waves up against the city walls, even if only in my head, prompt an involuntary smile. I return a phone call as I walk through the well-lit parking garage, and the smile disappears. Break-up despair, I can hear it in his voice immediately. I can only respond with that sinking feeling of knowing any words I utter can never make it better. I listen. I can only listen.

******

A wall of white dresses, dressing rooms built for two, and seating to accommodate an entourage of familial females bound by bloodlines and heart-lines. A bride with a flush and a smile, expectantly overwhelmed, she twirls and scowls. Perhaps finding her perfect dress will not come as easily as finding her perfect man.

******

Mincing garlic without the warning that my fingers would radiate the smell of garlic for days to come, despite numerous washings. I can offer no authority on the progress of the cooking chicken, but I can stir the two cans of diced tomatoes and chop the basil. We are feeding four a balanced meal, a delicious meal, a meal from scratch. A meal without the fear of salmonella.

********

With perfectly pressed seams, this suit makes its first re-appearance since last summer. Tailored to fit my petite portions, it adds years to my youthful appearance. The click-clack of my heels echoes louder than I remember, and a momentary inspection reveals metal poking through the heels. I wore through my heels last summer. This jeans, sweatshirt, sneaker lover wore through her high heels last summer, most likely walking through the halls of Rayburn. Now, walking through the halls of the district court house, clickclack, early for a meeting, clickclack, I run into a classmate. Court administrative week, we are both surprised to see each other. I am swept in and out of a chaotic meeting-type, waiting in the hall for the next time slot, hoping for less chaos, when a friend clickclacks down the hall towards me. Surprised and relieved to see her, she offers a stress alleviating hug, chats for a bit, calls me a champ, and resumes her meeting. Hours later, with unintentional creases now apparent in my suit pants, as I clickclack out of the courthouse, I run into another classmate I have not seen since last semester. Court administrative week - what are we all doing at the court house? Dressed in suits, on official business, I see as many classmates in the courthouse as I do in the round hallways of our school building. A transition out, certainly.

******

Still overwhelmed with assignments, due dates, rainbow highlighters and a pile of books. Early evening turns into late night, early morning comes too soon. A swat at an alarm clock, a sleepy 5:30am phone call to the broken-hearted, and a fast shower pries my exhausted body from sleep into the land of the awake. Or semi-awake. An 8:45am Conflicts of Law class means semi-awake at best. Another day of clickclacking through the courthouse in a suit, means an honest attempt at fully-awake. Fully awake and exhausted.

*****

"This must be for you." He hands me my banana-chocolate milkshake with a smile. I nearly melt with gratitude. Clickclacking out of the colorfully decorated whimsical haven, I know how out of place I look in my conservative navy suit, but I could care less. I am too busy inhaling my perfect chocolate banana milkshake.

****

A 1:30am phone call from the new mother, because she is breast feeding and thought I might be up. I don't have the heart to tell her that I collapsed into bed hours ago, immediately following the chocolate banana milkshake. I mostly listen, incapable of forming a coherent thought, and try to picture my friend from high school now at home with her three week old daughter.

***

Twenty-something: a time period of change and transition. If I had to pick a specific cluster of days to represent my twentysomething life, it would be these April days.

"I carried a watermelon."

The statement slipped out before I could catch it. Before I could determine that it made zero sense in the context of our casual and introductory conversation. Before I could pause to tell the back story, give it context, explain its real meaning. It just popped out; a statement that I usually close a longer story with just asserted itself without the rest of the story. How dare it do that! And why couldn't I stop it?!

It fits at the end of a story about new beginnings, challenges, perseverance, belonging, self-reliance, resourcefulness, comfort, and humor. Standing alone it felt nonsensical, naked, awkward, and out of place. It came out quickly, before my car door shut and he walked around to the other side. I didn't have time to elaborate or explain, which is probably why the statement came out unaccompanied in the first place. By the time he took his place behind the wheel too much time had passed. I couldn't help the awkward statement without appearing awkward myself. So I betrayed it in the same manner it betrayed me - I left it alone. Perhaps the night air swept it away or perhaps it still stands out in the parking lot alone waiting for companionship by the rest of the story. I'm not sure I will have that opportunity.

So for now, I just shake my head and laugh, make a quizzical face and repeat my absurd statement in the same way Baby does in Dirty Dancing:

"I love my car; I would live in it if I could."