Don't Go Breaking My Heart - Part 5 (Watch out for the Loonies - Part 2)

Ooops, did I leave you hanging? Who is "you" anyway? I doubt anyone's even reading this, but if you are, you may recall I said I was going to list some of the lunatic things I've done when it comes to men & relationships. Here goes:

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I once replied to a newspaper ad placed by a strange man looking for someone to carpool with him over several state lines -- just to save a few bucks over the price of a bus ticket.

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I used to go out dancing with my roommate while we were both engaged. We would wear gloves because we were cool and fashionable that way, and when guys would try to pick us up we'd tell them we were engaged. They'd look at our hands ready to say, "I don't see any ring," and the gloves would throw them off. "How do I know you have a ring on with those gloves?"

"You don't know."

"Are you trying to cover it up and just don't like ME?"

"Hmm."

It drove them batty. Apparently one night some of these boys we liked to toy with like cats play with mice watched us go out to my roommate's truck and memorized the look or the plate number.

A day or so later, we found a note on the windshield that said, "We drove all over the city looking for you two. Please go out with me and my friend."

Hey, I just realized that we weren't total lunatics in this story because we never did call the number they left. In fact, it did kind of freak us out that they knew where our neighborhood was. Luckily nothing ever came of it.

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In college, I was fearful of so many things. One was appearing like one of those ditsy girls who "likes" everything a particular guy likes just because he likes it and she wants him to like her. I couldn't see how any intelligent guy (the only kind I liked) would not see right through that facade. I used to go to the mall with the guy I was head-over-heels in love with (we were "just friends"). I remember walking through the home goods section of a department store and [let's call him] Doug pointed out a set of glass bowls that he liked. I think I got a lump in my throat when he asked me if I liked them. I adored them. They were exactly what I would pick out if I had my choice. In fact they were better than I had even known existed. Did I tell him? Oh, no, that might appear shallow or pandering, so I just swallowed and said as blankly as I could, "they're nice." Things like this happened frequently with Doug.

I wasn't so shy about our differences. When we were going to the house of some married friends off campus, to cook a meal, we stopped at the grocery store on the way. As we tried to decide what to cook, I readily voiced my distaste for certain foods he suggested. I guess I was so bold about letting my contrary opinion be known that he finally stopped in the middle of the aisle, looked me straight in the face and said, "I could never marry you, Bridgett Monroe! You are too picky." There went every last bit of air out of my lungs. The 'just friend' I was in love with, who I wanted to be with for the rest of my life, had just told me what? How should a girl reply to that kind of a blow? Well, since somewhere in my sadly shaped mind I had come to believe that letting a guy know you like him was like chasing him and chasing him would only lead to him running away, I had to play it cool.

"Well then don't," I replied.

Another time we were sitting together in the library, studying, and out of the blue, Doug said, "What would you think of being married to a journalist?" [hint: guess what Doug's major was.] There was that lump in the throat again. What did I say?

Short and not so sweet was my answer to the young man I dreamed of being married to: "I guess it would depend on who the journalist was."

He went on to clarify the question, saying, "In my journalism class we were talking about dangerous assignments that many journalists have to take in order to further their careers and how such things can be hard on their families."

I went home that evening and called my mom. I asked her what she thought about that question Doug had asked--was he talking about what girls in general thought or was he interested specifically in what I thought about it? I think my mom was fearful, too. She knew how much I liked Doug, and she didn't want to get my hopes up only to be crushed, so she said she thought he was probably just curious about what females in general thought of that career choice. I bought her safe explanation hook, line, and sinker... and it shaped the way I continued to interact with my best 'just friend.'

The results were tragic. More about that next time.

Don't Go Breakin' My Heart (part 4)

There's a clump wadded up in the corner.
I pause as I'm sorting through the clutter,
wondering if I should just throw it out
and clear the floor for sweeping,
for dancing,
for moving about freely.

The recollection is vague--
what's inside the clump--
the crinkled letters, words,
thoughts, feelings, events, touch, tears,
the journey,
the dreams and prayers,
some of my deepest years shared with another,
soaked in my deepest tears shed over any yearning,
torn by my deepest fears
that wrapped the deepest of loves
until it suffocated.

The clump's always been there.
Sometimes I'm so used to it
It becomes part of the texture of the rugs
and the tapestries
part of the pattern
yet
indiscernible as anything more
than a clump,
a useless thing.

When I have approached,
to try to smooth it out enough to see,
to comprehend,
I've been chided,
"Just throw it out and forget about it!"
Forget about it?
Forget about what?
Can I throw out that which I'm unable to grasp?
Or will phantom clump continue to haunt,
continue to trip me up,
continue to thwart the dancing
for which I know this floor was intended?

Don't Go Breakin' My Heart (part 2)

Moving vans are strange things. They pass us on the freeway, but how often do we stop to think about the lives crammed in those traveling boxes? People cruising on to a new life in a new place, but carrying so much old baggage with them.

We did the same. A few months after we married, Todd and I moved to California. We drove a Ryder van through the long stretch of nothing with only our destination in mind.

Over the years I've come to realize that enjoying the scenery is not something we do well together. It seems that either one of us can do just fine on our own, but together? Not so much. Todd gets testy on trips. It's not that he can't enjoy the scenery, in fact I remember multiple times when we'd be driving along and I'd start to say something, only to be chided with "Not now, I want to enjoy this." (And mind you, it wasn't that he had a problem with what I was saying or how I was saying it, because he'd cut me off before I even got a sentence out.) It was (and is) all about his timing, his perfect timing--a second off Todd's ideal schedule and the world might as well be crumbling from it's foundations. Is it any wonder I now pass up trips with him and live for those times when I can hit the road without him?

For only having been married a few months, we had an awful lotta stuff in that Ryder: A monster of a china cabinet we hadn't asked for, in a style I never would have chosen, but the in-laws thought to be just what we needed to display our wedding china (which we didn't ask for either, but when prompted to select a pattern, we obliged only to be told "that pattern is too expensive, pick another.")

One item, a very long, old couch was especially heavy. You'll never guess where that came from. Remember the gal who asked Todd if he'd ever been in love? Yep, she was in need of some cash, I guess, and Todd, being the sensitive guy he is, thought her semi-antique (ratty old) couch would be the perfect addition to cuddle up on in our newlywed nest. I might have thought it was kind of cool if it hadn't carried with it the ghost of "No, I've never been in love" past. We lugged that thing cross country and right into our "new" life.