Take Care

This time of late night, early morning there's hardly anyone out. We are flying down the highway, the moon roof on his rental open as far as it can go. It's one of my favorite times of year, before it gets inconceivably, unbearably hot and you can stand to expose yourself to the elements. I lean my head back on the headrest, enjoying the breeze on my bare shoulders and thighs.

It's there that his right hand has been occupied most of the drive. Lithely traveling the expanse from my knee to mid-thigh where his fingers, barely a few shades darker than the palest part of my inner thigh, rest comfortably at odd intervals. It's equal parts soothing and erotic and possessive as hell.

I like it.

"This song reminds me of you," he says, turning up Flashing Lights.

"Why?"

"Well I know it's your favorite. But also... this." He turns the volume up even louder.

“I know it's been awhile sweetheart we hardly talk I was doin’ my thing. I know it was foul baby, hey babe, lately you been all on my brain…”

"Reminds me of us."

"Hmm," I purr under my breath, remaining noncommittal.

We lapse back into comfortable silence for a moment, letting Ye say it all for us. Him focusing on the part where you find your way back to someone you lost after realizing you can’t conquer the world without them by your side. And me on where I'm at right now...

"She don't believe in shooting stars, but she believe in shoes and cars…"

I am not looking for a benefactor, but I do crave something more tangible than wispy edged fairy tales. And this, whatever it's been all the years that have passed since a mutual acquaintance introduced us, since the last time we tried this and stopped speaking until we were set up again over the holidays, certainly has been a shooting star. Pretty and promising, but far away and elusive as hell. Coming and going so quick you find yourself wondering if your eyes are playing tricks in you.

But you still feel the memory, so you know it was real.

He brings me back to where I’ve gone in my mind with his lips, first on my open palm, then the delicate skin over the blue veins of my wrist. He leans further, one eye on the road, steering with his knee to kiss the curve of my shoulder. I shift in my seat to look at him, and remove my neck from the line of fire. I might don’t make it if he makes it there.

"It could be like this, you know. With us. If I move here."

"Oh, no. Don't do that. Don't dream sell me."

He laughs. "Not dream selling. Just presenting the possibilities."

"Hmm," I say again .

The iPod shuffles to a new song.

"This one reminds me of you too." He's quiet as the first few words of the song beat through the speaker.

"I know you've been hurt by someone else, I can tell by the way you carry yourself..."

"Did you just tell me a song by Drake, the Paddington Bear of the rap game, reminds me of you? No T.I.? No Outkast? No ‘Pac? Bah."

He laughs loud and hard at me.

"You don't have a single shred of sense."

"Just sayin’."

"When you're ready just say you're ready when all the baggage just ain't as heavy..."

"It reminds me of you because I'd take care of you if you let me."

"I don't need a savior. And I’m not really big on the whole knight in shining armor thing."

"I know. But you could use a partner. An addition to the home team."

Now this? This gets me. He knows that. Because I am a team person. I believe in we. Equals. Building together. Partnership. No homo.

"But I get why you're leery."

"I've loved and I've lost," I say along to the song, turning my face back to the window. He accelerates.

"Here is what I'm saying. No sales pitch. Just facts. You listening to me, La?" he turns down the music to make sure I get every word.

"Mmhmm."

"I know how things ended with us last time. How I ended things last time. And I’m sorry for that. But there's some reason why we keep getting back in touch. Or why we never really completely lost touch. There's a reason why when we do wind up back together it’s like no time has passed. I dunno what that reason is. But I know for once in a long time, we are both single. Not nursing any serious old wounds. Ready for what we both want. And, for the first time, maybe in the same city."

I struggle to keep my face passive despite the fact that everything he's said is something I've already thought to myself without my permission.

"Look, I know you've been in this situation before..."

I raise my eyebrow at him, subtly warning him to watch where he's treading. Because that foolish craving I had in a situation very much like this one, is still a bit too raw for him to poke at.

"But we are not that. Whatever this is, I dunno what it is, but I'm not that dude."

Of course he isn’t. He's That Dude. The one that bears an incredible, remarkable resemblance to the Prototype. If I believed in building people to my specifications or the concept of The One, he’d be almost unreasonably close to it. One of only two men I’ve known that carry that distinction.

That's intimidating as hell.

I say nothing, determined not to give anything away.

"Just don't judge me by the bullshit you went through before I fucking got here."

"That's fair."
“And then maybe you can stop holding against me what I did before.”
“Maybe.”

"Thank you."

"You wanna hug it out now? Or go back to the hotel and braid each other's hair or whatever?"

"What?!"

"I’m just sayin’. All these feelings and whatnot. Thought we were friends bonding at a sleepover or some shit."

"Yo, La, you are a real life asshole."

We laugh, the spell of the moment effectively broken, as I intended it to be.

"Ain’t nobody trying to be your fucking friend. Though I wouldn't mind a sleepover." He looks me up and down, that cocky smirk on his face, just as alluring as the first night I met him. His gaze lingers on my exposed thighs. I may as well be naked. I squeeze my knees together and take a deep breath.

"I'm a grown ass man, La. I don't have time for all them bullshit games you play with these dudes out here. Hide-the-feelings and shit. I know what I want. I'm not so scared that I can't put it out there. It's just up to you to meet me halfway."

"You don't live here yet. And you might not."

"True. But ignoring it won’t kill it. You should know that by now."

He turns the music back up, his hand finding its way back to my thigh, and I turn my face back to the window.

This is too familiar. I have been here. I’ve done this. And this too, isn’t it part of my pattern? Developing feelings for a friend because of what could be, for a great person whom I have intoxicating chemistry with who lives in some state that is not the one I reside in? With whom eventually, despite it all, the distance becomes the thing keeping us no longer just literally apart but painfully figuratively estranged?

It’s enticing, the idea that someone might be able to take care of you. That maybe there is someone who can fix all the wounds you've not been able to heal completely yourself. Especially when you’re weary. And feeling alone. But no one can "fix you." And there’s a reason the credits roll once your favorite rom com heroine gets to happily ever after. Because ever after, after you’ve been “fixed” ain’t always so happy.

I know why all these things from my past are coming back. Because I moved on without resolving them. Most everything that's come back around, I’ve been able to effectively sort out and put to bed. This though...

Shit.

Letter to my 18 Year Old Self

My dearest La,

You are running. Plain and simple. There are no fancy words for it or kinder ways to put it. You will regret it, because in a few years when you have your heart broken by a man you love more than air, everything you thought you left behind will be right in front of you and you will have to fight through it. It will hurt. But like Joy says, you are a palm tree.

Your running will take you away from home where you will regrettably spend upwards of $80,000 just to learn what you could have, should have learned anywhere else in the world for free; not everyone will leave you. And you are no island. The bad news is, the ill planned escape route commonly known as college will cause you financial stress for years to come. The good news, the amazing news, is that there, and in the years that follow, you will meet the family you have been looking for all your life.

These people you will meet, these lessons you will learn, the tears you will cry and fights you will have and smiles that will be permanently tattooed across a memory in your mind will shape you into who you always thought you could be, if you ever got the chance. You will not be alone anymore.

You think that running is the answer because you don’t think you’re strong. You chastise yourself for being intensely empathetic. You think your propensity for welling up at profound experiences and feeling everything, everyone so deeply hold you back. You feel guilty about being hurt. You feel weak for needing, for wanting. You are willful and selfish, not because you really are at your core, but because you don’t think anyone else is consistently looking out for you. And who can blame you for that with your history? You think this will protect you. And being able to protect yourself makes you feel strong. This, like so much else, in an illusion. This is what makes you weak.

About two years from now, you will find out something that will fundamentally change the way you’ve looked at your life. It will make you so angry that you will become numb. And you will stay that way, for far longer than you will be proud of.

If I could tell you anything, teach you anything that I know now at 28, that you cannot know at 18, it would be that you are no safer, no stronger for holding yourself back from people who wish to love you, flaws and all. You are no braver for holding things is. You are a pressure cooker. You will explode.

But unlike other times, you will have people in your corner to help you pick up the pieces. They will love you. They will find your brokenness uniquely lovely. They won’t be able to fix you, you will learn this lesson painfully, but they will be there. They will wipe tears and tell jokes and push back and ignore you when you proudly say you don’t need help. They will be there. They will love you. Please, let them.

Looking back at you now, even as you are stubborn, even as you are fractured, even as you are sometimes cold and quick tempered and unaffected, I am so proud of you. You are wildly creative and incredibly astute. You are exceptionally intelligent and, underneath it all, you are so incredibly kind and empathetic and not judgmental that it makes me weep. You instinctively seek goodness in people, to compliment the goodness you don’t believe you have in yourself, and you will find it, love. It won’t always be easy, as a matter of fact, it will hardly EVER be easy, but you will not just survive, you will flourish. Because at 18, you are stronger than some people are at 38, 48, 58.

I wish you knew that.

Love always,

La =)

Party of One

I am not much for holidays. Perhaps I lack that sentimental gene, or maybe I just don’t understand waiting for some arbitrary day to celebrate. But either way, I only look forward to the holidays that mean I will get to miss work. I am fond of New Year’s Eve, but only for the drunken debauchery. I think Hallmark has swindled us all with Valentine’s Day. I mildly enjoy 4^th of July, but mostly because I enjoy anything that involves beer and grilled hot dogs. I don’t get into Halloween because I don’t have an extreme sweet tooth and I don’t really require an excuse to dress like a whore if I want to. And any long time readers know that I would prefer Christmas not ever come around for me again.

I said all that to say, holidays don’t really do it for me.

BIRTHDAYS, however? I go hard for birthdays.

I buy gifts months in advance and plan parties and dinners. I make travel arrangements and demand people wear crowns announcing them as the official born day reveler. I organize trips to get tattoos and piercings and vibrators and that drink you set on fire before you shoot it. I cook food and mix drinks with a heavy pour and pick out club outfits and scout the perfect 24 hour diner at which to have a hangover breakfast. Really, birthdays are my opportunity to celebrate the people in my life, relish them being born and fete the fact that I get to see another year with them. Birthdays are important to me.

Which is why it’s such a shame mine will be so quiet this year.

Usually for my birthday, I am travelling. Firstly, because travel is the love of my life. And secondly because most of the people I love and would want to spend my birthday with are in states that are not the one I reside in. But this year, like most other years if I am being honest, my birthday snuck up on me, in no small part thanks to the fact that in a short three months, I have gotten in a car accident that rendered me carless, gotten my best friend married, broken my own heart a little bit, travelled to Jamaica, and countless other little things that have fragmented my stride and pilfered my time.

And now, as usual, I am blindsided by my birthday. It’s fucking April already.

As I usually do around this time, I reflect on the last year and size myself up against where I am and where I thought I’d be. To be frank, travelling or not, surrounded by friends or family or alone, the last few years I have fallen short of my own expectations.

And maybe that is part of why I am wearily side eyeing my birthday this year, willing to let it slide by with little pomp and no circumstance.

I am 28 and not where I want to be in my life.

“Where”, part metaphor and part literal state of being, has been the cloud hanging over my head. The last six years I have become a well versed student in solitude. I have taken long walks with silence. I have sat, completely still and unmoving, next to alone. I have curled up to wrestle through fitful bouts of sleep with only loneliness to spoon me.

This birthday will be no different.

It’s not lost on me that I have finally learned the lesson that no man is an island, a warm and fuzzy idea I fought almost the entirety of my life, and now I can’t seem to get back to the people I love so ardently and wholly for the life of me.

Thanks for that, Universe.

So, today on my birthday, as I have so often in the last few years, I will try to smile and enjoy my day and ignore the loneliness that settles cold in my chest. I will appreciate the friends who’ve grown to love me despite my penchant for slow dancing with seclusion, who will drink with me and make sure I get home safely. I will turn a blind eye to the longing to be closer to my friends and family that tugs at my heartstrings. And tonight, I will fall asleep, happy in a melancholy way, grateful to have seen another year, even if I have fallen so short of where I thought I’d be.

Today is my 28^th birthday. Wherever you are, have a drink for me. I’d like that very much.

Glory Box

I remember everything.

Every. Single. Thing.
All the things I never should have committed to memory.

I remember every touch. Every ripple of laughter unfurling from my open smile. Every lean in that made my breath catch in my throat. All the comfortable silences. The things I instinctively knew before we uttered them. The melodies of every song that made my attention wander to the corner of my mind where you lived. The hours, the days, built on top of each other like playing cards but laid with the permanency of cement. I remember every word I shouldn’t have leant an ear to, the inferences threaded in every syllable the knots of which I never should have taken the effort to unwind.

I remember every small concession. The excuse that went with each. It isn’t much, I’d think. This I can give.

But can I get it back?

I remember the things that I might have imagined, and the things I know I didn’t but wish I had. I remember every compliment and supportive word, every kind criticism and inside joke. In my mind, if I allow it, there is an ever-looping movie of everything and I am sitting in the audience, outside myself, critiquing, quipping, second guessing, shaking my head at myself.

I have seen this movie and predicted its inevitable end.

But still, I remember. Every look that lingered a bit too long. Every seemingly light hearted challenge, spoken like a dare but delivered like a promise, the meaning clear as glass, that I challenged with a demand for action. The simmering, underlying meaning behind the words I pretended to turn a deaf ear to, while I simultaneously tucked it away in my heart. The silences that always followed wherein I soundlessly willed everything to just be apparent. Transparent. Laid bare. Open.

Like I was trying to be.

Instead, there’s this. Shrouds and layers of poker faces and objectivity, of saying the right thing even if my heart knows I’m lying. Of remembering, at inopportune times, the sound of my voice rising to meet the timbre of your own. Of every deep breath I had to take to steady myself from feeling like I have vowed to never feel again.

I remember it all. And I am trying so hard to forget.

Paying for Prostitutes, Flaccid Penises, and War: Your Tax Dollars at Work

I can’t help but wonder sometimes just how stupid people think we are. It seems, to varying degrees, but certainly more intensely during the election cycles that grow longer and longer with each campaign, that people in positions of power and prestige think we will buy whatever it is they polish into a pretty PR package and flash across our TV screens and favorite webpages.

I suppose though, that the fact that it is working with certain subsets of our population proves that maybe some are more stupid than I give them credit for.

There is no premise so wildly ridiculous or as willfully ignorant of reality as the idea that people should get to decide “where their money goes” based on their individual principles.

At its core, ours is a country founded on the idea that we can be a collection of people with different values and beliefs, connected by a shared sense of humanity, with a government able to appropriately govern all those distinct ideals and create laws and legislation to protect these differences all while serving our common interests to the greater good of all.

Every day we prove that is bullshit.

What is probably most ridiculous about this often recycled idea of being able to pick and choose “what your money funds” is that it is in no way grounded in fact or logic. First and foremost, you would have a hard time tracing any money that you contribute through your tax dollars or to your insurance company to an individual’s abortion or birth control costs. But by some gigantic leap of logic, let’s say you could and could elect to no longer pay for it. Are you then comfortable with paying presumably more for premiums that help cover the gestation, delivery, and care of the unintended, unprepared for children that your insurance company will now cover for the next 18-25 years?

And to take it a step farther, does this mean we ALL get to decide what our money gets used for? If I were an employee in Arizona, where they want to make it easier for companies to fire women who use birth control to, you know, control birth, do I get to sue my employer or my insurance company for, say, covering Viagra for men? If God gave them a permanently flaccid penis, who are we to step in and give them a way around this naturally occurring event? If I don’t believe that men should be supplied with medications to supplement their sex lives, just as many people don’t believe women should, do I get to decide that my insurance premiums won’t cover Viagra?

Let’s say, for instance, I shared an insurance company with Rush Limbaugh, who so tastefully repudiated the idea that he might have to “pay for” Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke to have sex, does that mean I get to decide what treatments of his I will not contribute to? Do I get to decide that I won’t pay for any future prescription drug habit he might pick up again or rehabilitation he might require? Does it mean I get to opt out of paying for any cholesterol or heart medications he might need now or in the future because he is grossly overweight? I mean, much like “slut” Sandra Fluke, he has CHOSEN this lifestyle of obesity. Do I have to pay for that? Or, should the cigars he smoked for years, combined with his penchant for obviously overeating cause him some sort of sustained or long term illness, can I elect to not pay for those procedures? Because I don’t want my money going to support or treat such a lifestyle.

Can I decide that none of my tax payer money will go to helping him get divorced if/when he decides to leave his fourth wife or if he is ever again arrested for doctor shopping? I mean, my hard earned tax dollars go to the cops that would have to issue the warrant and the courts that would have to hear the cases. Can I decide that I don’t want to support his lifestyle of failed marriages or skirting the policies of the very institutions he claims to currently be outraged by for providing birth control?

The honest fact of the matter is, that anyone pretending to be outraged about where their money goes when they pay it to a business, an insurance company, or the government is simply looking for a new message to pedal simple minded minions of an establishment bred on inequality and hypocrisy who then carry the torch of faux outrage and foolishness onto airwaves, print and across the most ignorant avenues of the internet. No one believes that you can elect that your money be spent on only the causes and conditions that you believe in or morally support. It’s patently unrealistic and will never really be acceptable if for no other reason than how on EARTH would we pay for the wars we so love to engage in that the majority of Americans don’t support?

If we are going to pretend that we can mandate our dollars not be spent in ways that flagrantly fly in the face of our beliefs, then we have to be able to do it across the board. So, sure, conservative tax payers, religious organizations, and private companies who thrive on traditional values don’t have to “pay for” me or other women “to have sex.” But that means that my money, and the money of others like me, must go where we designate it, also; to Planned Parenthood and gay causes. To abortion clinics around the country and the insurance companies that cover them. To federal agencies and initiatives that protect our environment, hold accountable our financial institutions, and properly educate our students. To some defense interests, sure, but only to the branches of military that have appropriately thrown out Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and ONLY to the wars I agree with fighting.

Let’s see how well that goes.

Wait, you CAN Knock the Hustle?

“I am tired of dating dreamers,” my friend sighs over the top of a champagne flute, clearly exasperated and a twinge depressed. In the interest of transparency I will admit I was well on my way to the bottom of a carafe of mimosas, so I wasn’t entirely sure I was hearing her correctly.

“You’re tired of dating beamers?”
“No, drunk ass. Dreamers.”

I get it, I suppose. I mean we are all knocking on the door of 30. We have largely grown out of the wild, tempestuousness of our youth. We are all looking for growth, a small place to carve out of the universe to call our own, whatever that might look like. And my friend, well, apparently her place did not involve people who have dreams.

“What do you mean?”
“I mean I am tired of being drawn to these creative types, these people in risky fields, these change-the-worlders, with their really big but not-quite-tangible daydreams of what they wanna be when they grow up. I just wanna grow up already. And I am so tired of trying to support yet another boo through another lofty and infuriatingly vague goal, all the while wondering in the back of my mind, how is this going to help us build? Get married? Buy a house? Have children?”

This, I get. In great numbers, my past dating roster holds damn near every creative type you can imagine. Thousands of trees have died to hold pages of prose and poetry in my honor. At last count, there are at least half a dozen songs written, sung, rapped about me, and those are the ones I know about. And somewhere in the world there is a gorgeous black and white photo of my thighs probably being shown in some out-of-the-way art gallery and the only other person that knows they’re mine is the person that took it. And let’s face it; it’s all good when someone is quite literally making a canvas out of your back and painting your skin with acrylics in bed. (This happened.) But as a person who is both wildly creative but also decidedly pragmatic, I get what it’s like when the first couple months of all that passion and all that excitement fades and you wonder, where will all this get me?

Whether we like to admit it or not, there are few of us that can exist on change, on excitement, on dreams alone. We would like to believe that none of us are dream killers, or the bitter, failed talent of a teacher standing over a kid’s shoulders telling them that, sure, they’re talented, but so are millions of other people and don’t you wanna be a real grown up?

And my friend, with her career on track and her life largely  in order, doesn’t quite have the stomach for the unpredictability of dating someone with more dreams than assets.

“You don’t want someone who just doesn’t dream of anything, though. Or, my worse fear, have someone whose entire world is you,” I say, trying to be reasonable about this all.
“I mean, have goals. I am ok with that,” she continued, “but can they be something that will actually take you somewhere? That you can build on? That can propel us somewhere other than where we are right now? I mean, do you know how many thirty-something “rappers” I meet? Or “writers” who have written nothing beyond a blog review of the latest pair of J’s or Lil Wayne CD? Or producers? Or “club owners” who really are just Guy Who Stands Outside the Club and Passes out Fliers? I’m just over it.”

I choke on my mimosa at this because, let’s face it, WE’VE ALL MET THESE GUYS.

“To be fair though, these guys aren’t dreamers in as much as they are dream sellers.” We laugh, rolling our eyes at the tales of men we have collected from our girlfriends (and some guy friends) over the years about people who have waxed poetic about their status and their “hustle” and the “moves” they’re making, only for the reality to be that their idea of “status” is a base model 3-series and some Vist.aprint business cards.

“I just feel like I am getting to the point where dating these people still wrestling their childhood dreams is not getting me anywhere.”
“So, date someone older.”
“I’ve tried that too! So many of the older guys are married or divorced or have kids or they’re looking for someone even younger than me. I mean, how fucking depressing is that?! I’m only 29! What are you doing, trolling graduation ceremonies at your local high school?”
“Well, you can’t have it both ways. Finding someone who wants the things that you want might include dealing with someone divorced or with kids. And neither of those things has to be bad.”

In my mind, I am considering the irony of this entire conversation. Because really, doesn’t wanting all these things, this mythical man who’s young and virile enough to have kids but old enough to want commitment and has a career and some investments but isn’t married or divorced or a parent already, isn’t THAT a dream? One that we are probably too old, and too smart to still be holding on to, even if just a little bit.

I wonder too, if this is what people I date see when they appraise me, someone with effortless talent who is doing something that looks great on paper but is only mildly related to the things they want to do with no clear direction on how to get to the proverbial There. Sure, I have largely steered my life in the direction of responsibility, but I have not altogether given up on the dreams I have. Does having those, desiring those make me less desirable than, say, someone who is very interested in getting married and having babies and houses and minivans?

Much like everything else in my life, it could go both ways.

“I am not some unrealistic woman with some crazy list of expectations-“
“-This is a bit unrealistic, though-” I counter.
“-shut up. But at what point do you grow up and say, hey, I’m 32. Maybe I’M NOT going to be a world renowned photographer of raindrops on window sills. Maybe I should do some grown up shit with my life.” I know this is more the remnants of her last breakup speaking more than anything else, but the core question still rings true; is there some magical age you reach where hustling towards your dreams is no longer as acceptable as being there?

And if so, please someone tell me that it is further into the future than I am, cuz elsewise, I am screwed.

On Friendship and Marriage

“That’s what makes it so easy for me to be 85% happy for Chandler and Monica.”

(Joy will get that joke.)

Over the last few months, and increasingly since the actual wedding last weekend, I have gotten asked some variation of the same question from friends, family, co-workers, random baristas at Starbucks to whom I gushed about my best friend’s impending nuptials. It is usually something along the lines of, “Are you really jealous?” and/or, “Are you ready for things to change?”

I am not sure if the jealousy question is me specific, if I seem like the type of person to be jealous of someone else’s happiness (ouch) or if it is simply the question leveled at all single, childless best friends of women getting married. At first it bothered me. I won’t pretend I didn’t take it rather personally. What kinda person do people think I am?!

But eventually, I realized that more often than not, the people inquiring about the internal level of my jealousy towards my only childhood friend getting prepared to marry the love of her life A. did not know me well. B. did not know our almost two decade long friendship. And C. were generally the type to assume that the overarching goal in every woman’s life is to get married and have babies and buy a house in the ‘burbs and plant a tomato garden or whatever the fuck it is that those women do. So they couldn’t understand my point of view anyway.

But then there is the question of change.

Personally, being a creature of change, I don’t quite understand people’s aversion to it. And the simple fact of the matter is my best friend and I have been friends for more than half our lives; our lives have been nothing BUT change. So it is not entirely out of the prevue of our friendship that things change, we grow and adapt.

And to take it a step further, maybe this situation is unique. Perhaps there is a subset of people whose best friends have met someone in the last few years for whom they have altogether neglected them for, and then shown up wearing a diamond and wanting parties thrown in their honor to be organized by their abandoned friend. But this is not that. Firstly because my best friend’s now husband has been around for ten years; almost as long as we’ve been friends. And she has not ever unceremoniously abandoned me or her own life for his. There's never been any doubt for the larger part of ten years that these two would be married. So, maybe on some level I've already prepared myself for these looming changes and the wedding just made them official. I expect that some of what I tell her about my life will make it to his ears. I expect that she will want to include him in some of the things we do. I expect that there will be some things she will tell him, go through with him, experience with him that she will not share with me. The great news is that my best friend has chosen an amazing man to marry, who can be trusted with the intimacies of our relationship, who is fun to spend time with, and will support her in my stead.

That means, for the most part, our relationship as best friends must take a back seat to their relationship as husband and wife.

And that's how it's supposed to be.

In youth, we might be all ovaries before brovaries (© Kit over at Hello Drunky), but the reality is that when we grow, when we find someone to share our lives with, in the confines of matrimony or out, by the very necessity of nurturing that relationship, our priorities must change. And your real friends, the ones who have grown past the adolescent girl code, will understand this preemptively and respect the necessity of the change.

The fact of the matter is I adore my best friend to the ends of the earth and back. And she has found a man who loves her just as much, if not more. They have pledged their lives to each other and soon, after some time to enjoy being married, will start giving me nieces and nephews I can spoil rotten and dress up in various ensembles bearing adorable monkeys. On Saturday, my best friend’s face lit up in a way I have never seen in 16 years of friendship. She was positively radiant. THAT is the change I’m interested in. I am not particularly concerned with whether or not I will have to start calling and texting her at respectable hours now that they share a home.

I understand, in the most basic way, why people ask the questions. But to do so illustrates a profound misunderstanding of who we have been and continue to be to each other. Just as she bought a plane ticket she likely couldn’t afford to come proudly watch me graduate from Howard without a trace of envy that she herself had not yet graduated, I was honored to stand up with her at her wedding crying like a baby without a binkie, and witness her marry this man she loves so much. We don’t begrudge each other our happiness just because we have not attained it ourselves. Because love is not jealousy encouraged by ego. It is travelling a couple hundred miles to wait on your best friend hand and foot, throwing her a party that may or may not have included straws shaped like penises and celebrating the first day of the rest of her life, that you get to share.

Walls

Montego Bay, Jamaica
Wednesday February 15, 2012
3:58PM

As soon as I step off the plane, I am greeted with a welcome wall of heat. Walking through the quiet Montego Bay airport, I am mentally cataloguing all the similarities and differences between what I am accustom to and what I am experiencing. Everyone that deplaned with me meanders through the airport, seemingly shedding the break neck pace of America and getting on island time. I look around once we reach customs and we’re standing in line, watching everyone shifting nervously in line despite not being particularly guilty of anything. It is then that I first realize that I am surrounded almost entirely by white people. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t expect the exact opposite, but I suppose, in the middle of the winter and flying mid-week like most tourists do, I need to adjust my expectations. After relishing the satisfying clunk of the new stamp in my passport, I gather my bags and head to the lounge reserved for guests of the resort where I am staying.

It’s lovely. All soft lighting and comfortable chairs, gleaming wood and a full bar, everything you would hope to find greeting you after a long flight (well, not so much for me with a 2 hour flight, a 50 minute layover and then an 1 hour flight). When I walk in, the employees look up and smile at me but can’t hide the split second look of shock that cross their faces. I return their warm smiles and retreat to a corner to curl up with my Ki.ndle and read until the shuttle arrives to take me to the resort.

Instead though, I start to look around. Immediately, I’m struck by the stark racial divide at play here; the well-to-do white folks being catered to by brown people. I notice these things, though I'd like to believe I am evolved enough, post racial enough, indeed not racist enough to notice. But despite all my education and travels and knowledge, I am still a daughter of the deep south. Born of 1 of the most dirtily racist states in the confederacy. And no matter where I go, whether I like to admit it or not, I carry with me the history of every time I've been called a nigger. Every time I have been met with surprise at my aptitude because of my skin color. Every time I've been followed in a store or sneered at by a white man or called gal or overheard a child innocently asking why my skin was different. Whether I like it or not, I see things through the prism of descending from a lineage of strange fruit hanging from poplar trees. I cannot not see with these eyes.

It's important I note that this quiet discomfort wasn't prompted by any mistreatment or even a shared knowing look passed between me and my skin folk acknowledging "you know how they are." Rather, I have to admit there seems to be a kind and easy report between these fairer skin tourists and the employees here to welcome them; certainly they aren't getting together later for beers, but there is no condescension, no air of rudeness or privilege, no tangible evidence that anyone but me has noticed the clear racial delineation between those that have and those that have not. I can’t tell if everyone but me really is just blind to it, if the white folks are too privileged to notice, or if the black people are too worried about providing for themselves to care. Still, there exists a wall of sorts, between the smiling faces that greeted us, and the people patronizing the resort. It is invisible and certainly not barbed wired but it exists nonetheless.

I am not out and out uncomfortable with it all, but I notice. Just as I notice, with a painful twinge, the older black men shining the shoes of often white business men in the airport. As I notice when a porter, usually brown, is helping carry bags and is barely afforded a grateful glance.

I notice.

Once outside the airport and on the 90 minute trip to Ocho Rios, I am again unsettled by my surroundings. Without even trying, there seems to be a distinct demarcation between classes here, as well; there’s the multi-million dollar resorts on the beach front. There’s the large, looming houses on the mountain. And in between there is miles of shacks and bumpy roads and abandoned buildings. In between, it seems, is for Everyone Else.

We drive past a row of large, gated houses, not nearly as large as the homes built into the mountain side but still fairly sizeable, that seem a bit out of place next to the stretch of highway and among the random gas stations and small businesses that dot the roads. It doesn’t take me long to notice that these homes are not merely gated; rather they are confined by 8 foot cement walls and sealed with heavy, impenetrable iron gates. A quick glance at the houses nestled in the mountains reveals that these homes aren’t just built on the mountain for the panoramic views. Rather they are quite literally built into the mountainside, the jagged terrain providing a wall made from nature to augment even more imposing gates around their properties than those on the beach front.

When we finally reach our resort, the story is still much of the same, our beautiful, lush, multi-million dollar resort that just underwent a multi-million dollar renovation is walled from its surroundings by wrought iron and concrete, standing next to, quite literally, a building that appears to be gutted and is slowly decaying.

Where the hell is all this money going, if not to the people?

It seems that in Jamaica, as in America, as in so many other countries I have travelled to and read about, a profound chasm exists between the haves and the have nots and with it, a concerted effort to either keep those who have less out, or keep what you have acquired in. Or maybe every wall is just an attempt to block the blight that exists in our own backyards.

All

“I want it all. Everything. All of you. I will not accept anything less.”


The Great Houdini had a way of saying things that made me understand that, despite his jovial nature, he was not kidding. And right then, in that hotel room in New Orleans, he was very serious. His voice was quiet, as we were sharing our space with my family but there was no mistaking his solemnity of this desire. It wasn’t a demand, but a command, the latter of which I respond much better to. But despite not dangling the invisible ultimatum of a demand over my head, I had no doubt in my mind that he meant exactly what he said.

“I know you. You’re used to being one foot in and one foot out. I get that. I do. But I want everything. All. All of you.”

All is one of those words I had not then, and have not yet made peace with. All is totality, entirety, whole. And despite every romantic comedy touting the wondrous feeling of falling for someone, belonging to someone, I have never been particularly comfortable with it. I am honest enough to say my own issues play a significant role in this disquiet. But mostly, I don’t understand how you can exist if you have given yourself completely over to this person, this relationship, this love.

“You have all of me.”
“No. I have more of you than any man ever has. And still, only as much as you’re comfortable with.”

That was the truth. Had been my truth through every major relationship I’d ever been in. First Love? I knew we were doomed once I grew up and stopped looking for a savior. Gay Husband? Epically doomed from the start. Almost Fiancé? God, I loved him. Adored him. Respected him as a man and a human being. But we were young. And our circumstances were so extreme. And a part of me always knew this would not be the beginning of a lifetime.

And I am ashamed to admit, I found some comfort in that.

“I don’t really know how to do that.”
“I know. But we are going to figure it out. Because that’s what I want. Not part. Not half. Whole. All.”

He put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me, as was his way, pulling away and looking at me intently long enough for the racket around us to go silent for a moment. Then he kissed me again, and started talking to my godfather about chess.



That conversation stays with me. Every once in a while, something, someone, brings it back to the forefront of my memory. Someone wanting all. Me not feeling comfortable giving it, certain every step will take me deeper into a mudslide of heartbreak.

As I’ve gotten older, I find myself inching towards this metaphorical all, leery of it but tiptoeing closer, eyeing it watchfully. I haven’t again been there, but every once in a while I find someone who makes me feel like I could take a trip. Temporarily. Just to see what it’s like, how it’s changed in the years since I’ve last visited.

But then I remember the problem with all is that, ostensibly, there is none of you left for yourself. That giving all, being all to someone else, means there is a good chance you are sacrificing something of yourself. Hopefully it is something you can afford to lose and the tradeoff is worth it. But often, it is something you give to pay the price of admission. And there are no refunds.

I know I am supposed to be caught up in the whimsy of the all. But I just can’t bring myself to trust that all won’t fall down all around me.

That is All.

I laugh too loud. I curse more than a sailor. I can drink you under the table. And I will. I won’t always be comfortable talking about how I feel, but I will always cook for you and remember that random thing you said you wanted 9 months ago and get it for your birthday. I am not great at needing people, and it will likely be years before you meet my family. If my friends hate you, you will most likely have to go. I will unwittingly steamroll over you if you give me no pushback, and likely not feel bad for it. I am hard to get to know, and terribly uninterested in changing that. My life is full and I will not let you into it unless you make it impossible for me to not want you in it. You’ll need to carve out your own space. I cry at beautiful harmonies and shut down when I am angry because I have a Chernobyl temper. I say things wrong, and I will be frustrated when you don’t understand me. I will fight you if you ever put your hands on me and I will leave you if you lie. I yell at the TV and sing along with the radio. I will not listen to a word you say until I am ready to take your advice. I drive faster than the speed limit and will quickly get irritated with you if you tell me to slow down. I am incredibly smart, which you will sometimes forget because I am silly. I giggle at everything when I’m sleepy and babble when I’m nervous. Periodically I will experience a bad streak of insomnia, and I won’t expect you to stay up with me, but I will adore you if sometimes you do. There is a significant chance I will dance with you like I don’t have a daddy at home in the club, and I might proposition you in public. I am not interested in your judgments of my sexual proclivities, only your enjoyment of them. I will need gratuitous amounts of silence and a place I can be alone. I will make you look good in front of your boss. I will charm the hell out of your parents. I will take care of your family like my own. Your friends will adore me. There is a significant chance that should we not make it, they will still periodically ask you about me, no matter who you are currently dating, and a daring few might reach out to me every now and then to see if we might reconcile under the guise of “checking on me.” I will remember the beer your best friend drinks and I will cook and then leave the house when your boys come over to watch the game. I will sometimes watch you sleep and feel incredibly lucky. I will make a home in the crook of your arm I expect to occupy at most times I am by your side. I will unapologetically steal your clothes, and when you leave the room I will lay on your pillow because it will smell like you. I will stumble over saying “I love you” but I will say it, over and over, when I feel it, until it is a second language. We will have animals. And sometimes you will need to reach things on high shelves. Under this circumstance, a well-timed short joke is permissible, but not under many others. I will write thousands of pages of prose about you that you might never read. I will see the world with you.


I will love you. That is all.