pathetically real confessions of a single woman

A little over a year ago--back in April, to be exact, near the end of my final, crazy 25 credit semester, I spent a chunk of money I should have kept in savings to buy an airplane ticket to go and visit a man I knew wasn't in love with me, but whom I thought I might convince otherwise if I just was where he was. He was a brilliant musician. He looked like a well-groomed homeless man. He was so content with himself and in his aloneness that it made me want to immediately change all that about him. Make him feel he should need someone. He was also a good kisser.

He only lived 6 hours away, so I could have driven, but I didn't. I flew because it gave me extra hours to read Henry VIII and draft a paper on Charlotte Temple--both difficult to do from behind a wheel and both needing done two days ago. And I wasn't really in love with him, either. But I hadn't dated anyone for 5 months post-Ninja, I had been spending way too much time talking to myself at nights, my phone was atrophying from lack of use. Plus, this guy was intriguing and we'd started something over our two previous visits to one another (one involving him coming to see me on a Greyhound because his car could barely cross town, and one involving me driving fifteen hours in one day) and, annoyingly,  I always finish what I start. I go until someone/thing says, "Stop already, Lady."

A quick summary of that trip would go like this:

*More money for a rental car, because apparently his car also couldn't drive the 45 minutes between the town where he lived and the airport.

* More money for a hotel room, because apparently he couldn't put me up on his couch.

*Spending the next several hours sitting in band practice where I moved a lot of drum kit and spent more hours talking to the bass player than I did the guy I'd come for.

*It was unexpectedly cold that day, and I'd been using "guy's" old wool sweater with the blown out elbows to keep warm (he'd taken it off during practice, I'd picked it up. It smelled like him, which was nice, I thought). As we were walking outside, he said, "Can I have my sweater back? It's cold." That should have told me something. But...

*We got tacos from a little shop called Diego's. We drove my rental car up onto a ridge overlooking the city to eat them. He brought his guitar and sang to me (though it was a song I knew he'd written for his ex-girlfriend). Still, I thought, Oh, here it is. I better capitalize on this moment. I said, "I think I love you, ____________ (insert his name)" (which, I knew immediately as it fell from my mouth wasn't true and hated saying because those are not words I use trivially and even had to stifle the laugh that almost followed, but it felt like a game of chicken at this point and I wasn't going to be the one who jumped out of the tractor).

*His response was, "Yeah. I don't know how I feel." Then we drove back down the ridge in awkward silence. It was not my finest moment. And I left the next morning. And he chose sleeping in over telling me good bye. And I cried in the airport (and I noticed, then, a lot of people cry in airports) but I still finished my Charlotte Temple paper. And I went home and wrote one of my most powerful short stories ever loosely based on the whole ordeal.

And I laughed at myself, and at the experience, and at the boundaries sadness can push me, anyone, to. But I never vowed to do better because I really hadn't regretted any of it. Not even the money, really, sort of. {And as a face saving follow up on that story, he did--months later--like a few men have--admit that he hated himself for letting me go and I was the best thing that ever happened to him, etc, etc}

And a year and several months later, what am I doing? Using a chunk of money I should probably put back into my savings (which is now depleted) to buy an airplane ticket. Different guy. Situation inside me feels completely different. Situation between guy and I feels completely different. But maybe it's the same and I just want it to be different. Maybe I am comforted enough that there is no drum kit to be moved to convince myself it's different. But I think it's different. Honestly. My heart--and that stronger voice behind my heart--say so, for what that's worth.

Once, one of my friends, in a declaration of  unhealthy love, decided to ride from a party-- very drunk--on her bicycle because the guy she thought she loved and thought could love her back wanted her to come over. Right then. She ended up crashing. Two black eyes and face scraped all up. And that was only the exterior manifestation of what I'm sure was the emotional crash inside her. I'm not privy to all the details of that story, but I'm guessing when she didn't show up, that guy didn't call and see where she was. Or, if he did, didn't rush out to help when he found she was hurt. He probably just called some other girl.

I guess this is just me, peeling back all the spirituality and faith that I usually (happily) enshroud myself in, the stuff that gives a shinier perspective to everything, and just being pathetically real. Figuring stuff out. Trying. Wondering why we, as women, do what we do sometimes. Let people do things to us. And not just women--men, too. Why, sometimes, we're so afraid to just let go and be loved in a normal way by someone we might not feel really excited about but who would be good to and for us. Why we don't say no when we should. Why we take on too much. Why we hold on to things maybe we shouldn't. Why we don't always learn our lessons.

I'm ok with doing less than smart things. I have enough self-respect to know when to laugh and turn things around, to save my dignity.  I know my worth. Yes, I push too far. Yes, I'm neurotic about losing things I put time and effort into building up. Yes, I make stupid-ish choices sometimes. But everything has a purpose if I let it. And sometimes, those stupid choices pay off.  In my career and in my writing mostly, so far. But maybe, you know, one day they'll pay off in my romantic life during the sparse times I have one. When they do pay off, then people call them "wise risks." And congratulate you on not being ruled by your fear. And point to you as a good example for others to emulate when just a month or two ago they all said the opposite.

Go figure.