love resolutions, part 2

“You know, I gave up on you today,” I said, asking for him to ask me why.  
“When you left tonight, if I hadn’t reached out, would you have contacted me?”
I was in his arms when he asked me.  I was wearing a soft cotton tee and my hair was loosely tied back.  I looked at him, indignant.  That is not the question I asked for.
“No.”
“Then it’s me who’s pursuing you now, I was the one who reached out.”  
“You didn’t reach out.  You lost and you reacted.  They’re not the same thing.”

Don’t be naive.  

—

We obsessively allow minutiae to control us.  We have no reading comprehension for life, no understanding for the greater scheme.  It’s all what did he say?  And how did she say it?  Where were they when it happened? And why won’t he friend you?  We hear the relationship note for note and not for its song, and this song is not sad, no, it’s worse than that: it’s bad.  

I stumbled to the bus stop at 5 am on Thursday.  I hadn’t slept, and I was exhausted from work and stress.  I’d allowed a man, a boy, into my apartment and my life for amusement and time-passing and I am sure I would have liked him had he let me.  I am sure I would have seen him had he allowed me to be anything more than a game. But I carried my bag to the bus stop alone, without a see you soon to warm my cheeks.  And at that bus stop, I had no name.  I had a ticket and a sallowness.  I felt fine or nothing at all.  

Have you ever stopped to remember if you believe in God?  

In the game of cat and mouse, someone either gets eaten or gets away.  

—

“I threw in the towel on 101.”
“What happened?”
“I went on vacation and I missed someone else.”
“Who?”
“Someone who gives a shit.”  

Are you having fun?

—

I had Love Resolutions and I was cavalierly picking and choosing which ones to employ based on my mood and my agenda.  I was misbehaving and treading water.  I was batting around a toy to amuse myself, waiting for it to play back.  I let 101 be my muse, crushing and pulling and using me.  And I loved it because it made my words like music.  I was in love with my own turmoil, fixating on tiny little nothings, ignoring dreams and hopes and passions.  Denying myself joy and choosing heartache, thinking that the creative process was enabled by a degree of self-inflicted agony.  But at that bus stop, slack-jawed and red-eyed, I wanted with fever and greed to be loved by hands that could map my face and my dreams in one swoop and he never would.  He never could.    

Do you like this person or are you just bored and lonely?  

—

In a penthouse in Chelsea, New York City, with cascading views of the Hudson, I told my best friend about a boy.  I talked about him the way I talked about her: with gratitude, with joy.  I talked about our friendship and my hopes for him and how much I missed him when he was gone.  I showed her his picture and I explained its context.  She nodded, eyeing me suspiciously.  I smiled and sunk into the couch, texting him to tell him I was bragging about him.  He replied, and I giggled.  Quietly, as the sun set and the buildings flickered to life, I ruminated.  I missed someone who was kind to me, who cared about me, who made me laugh and be better. I looked at his name, illuminated on my phone.  102.

Call people.

—

I pedaled harder and faster than ever before.  The wind fought me and I struggled to keep a straight path.  I was fast and strong and dedicated and worthwhile and kind and tough and I was tired of trying to prove it.  I wanted so much to make everyone else happy.  I wanted so much to be someone else’s happiness.  I wanted so much to be happy myself.  And I wanted to believe I deserved it.  I took an aggressive right and skidded through the salt on the road nearly losing my grip, laughing to myself.

I was going to be fine.  

Under the barrage of emails and fire drills, through the subtle let-downs and the aggressive lead-ons, we allow ourselves to weaken.  Through the flagrant tone of someone having a worse day, we allow ourselves to absorb and succumb to that dread.  In the delicate and massive difference between ‘please’ and ‘now’ our hearts race over what?  Over spelling errors and broken plans?  When did we allow ourselves to not only be treated this way but to feel this way?  When did we begin to accept unkindness and casual cruelty as inevitabilities that we dealt with, that we just hoped would turn around?  When did we stop turning them around ourselves?  

Do we choose the path of destruction because knowing it would be painful is easier than hoping for something to finally be something else?  Do we complain and wallow and worry because the proactive risk failure?  Are we unhappy because we are choosing to be?

How many excuses do we need to make for ourselves before we choose joy?  

I pulled into the parking lot and called 102.  

“I want to see you tonight.  I have something I want to tell you.”

Lay it all out there just once this year.