My icon is so appropriate for my life right now...
Hello all! Long time no post, I know, I know. For the most part, this has been because I have nothing to report-this new job, which was supposed to be The Job and keep me so happy and satisfied in fact just depresses me to the point of exhaustion and sitting on the couch with a glass of wine most evenings. Let’s be honest, no one wants to hear about that.
And then, in August, everything began to change. Well, okay, not everything-the job still sucks-but change was on the wind. To fully appreciate my last month, we need to rewind almost a year, to last September.
ENTER: THE GIRL
I was signed up for an Ecocriticism class, which yes, is as full of bullshit as it sounds. And everyone in my class was so earnest about it-everyone but one girl. She was smart, and funny, and did all her reading which is completely absurd. And she had this smile that just-it was like the sun. We got along wonderfully. I was infatuated.
Now, I’ve never been shy about going after what I wanted, and luckily for me she wasn’t horrified by my affections, and by December we were An Item. And everything was wonderful and glorious and vomit-worthy for about six months. And then the problems started. Or rather, became evident-I’m quite sure they’d been there all along.
For starters, she wasn’t out to her family. I never thought that would be a problem for me-there are lots of reasons that it’s safer for everyone involved to stay closeted, especially in Montana-but the truth is, it started to wear on me. It made me feel like I wasn’t worth the risk, or that I was only temporary, or a million other stupid things. Rationally, of course, I knew that it had nothing to do with me at all but reminding yourself of that day after day becomes exhausting.
And then there was the sex. Not to go into gory details or anything, but the truth was it was lackluster. Everyone involved was getting off but-there was no passion. It started happening less and less and by month seven it just stopped altogether.
But the real problem was this: she was always going to leave. I don’t mean like Oh Woe our Love it is Doomed I mean she was literally going to leave. First in October for two months to teach in Costa Rica, and then in February for at least a year to teach somewhere else in South America. Which I fully support, in the abstract. Teaching and overly-warm, Spanish-speaking countries are her passion, and that’s great. Except that when you’re in a relationship, and things are getting serious, like, spend-every-night-together serious, and you keep hearing things like “well, there’s no point even talking about moving in together, I’ll be gone before then anyway” or “I love you so much I want to be with you forever, and by forever I mean February” things start to fall apart.
The final nail on our proverbial coffin was that she went away for two weeks. Now, two weeks is not a long time. It’s hardly any time at all, really. But I am not one of those people for whom absence makes the heart grow fonder. Absence, for me, leaves me far too much time to sit and think about every little imperfection, until I can’t even really remember why we were together in the first place.
So she comes back and I’m honest with her, tell her I can’t do it anymore, and she begs me not to go. For two hours. It was, quite literally, the worst conversation I’ve ever had, and it still makes me sick to think about it.
EXIT: THE GIRL
So now I’m miserable, and alone, and pretty sure I’m going to be alone forever, and weeping to myself on the couch.
“Get up and stop moping, you’re so melodramatic” says my roommate, whose sympathy for such goings-on expired after about two days, “and put on something nice, we’re going downtown and you’re going to have fun.”
I put on something nice. I went downtown.
ENTER: THE BOY
So about the time I met The Girl, I also met The Boy. I didn’t think much about him when I first met him, except “wow that guy is smoking hot”, but as things with The Girl started to go south things with The Boy started to become more attractive. Let me put his hotness in perspective for you-he has a tattoo of a snitch. He uses really horrible mathematically-inclined pick-up lines. And did I mention the dimples? We even named our first two children-the boy would be Peter Parker Buchannan (that’s the Boy’s last name) and for a girl, Lily Evans Buchannan. Our nerd love was pure. Anyway, the point is, whenever we were downtown together we’d talk nerdy to each other, and then we’d go our separate ways.
So I’m in my nice black dress which makes my tits look fantastic, and The Boy shows up. We do our regular thing, and he finds out I’m single, and the next day I get a facebook message asking for my number, which I gave him, and then he went off to musical theater camp for two weeks.
What followed were innocent text messages which quickly escalated into NC-17 quality. It was… explicit. And exciting! And I knew the timing was bad, but I thought to myself “you know what? We could really have something here.”
Which is when I found out he had a girlfriend.
Now the thing was, he told me this and then said that they were at camp together, and he didn’t want to break up with her there because it would be this huge dramatic mess but that things were essentially over between them and had been for a while. Because I am an idiot, I believed him.
We missed seeing each other by one day-I left for my bike tour (more on that later) a day before he got home from camp. I was a little disappointed, but ultimately thought it was probably a good thing because he’d have all week to break things off with his girlfriend and get over her and then I’d come back and everything would be wonderful, and we’d leave out the bad timing and the inappropriate text messages when telling little Peter and Lily about how we found love.
What actually happened was that I had a hellish 75 mile bike ride, got into camp, and received a text message in which he told me he’s still in love with his girlfriend, they’re going to stay together, but we should stay in touch because we have a lot in common. Also, would I mind not mentioning the last couple weeks to anyone.
I tell you what, it’s a good thing I was many hundreds of miles away because I have never wanted to punch someone in the face so badly in my life.
EXIT: THE BOY
EPILOGUE: THE BIKE TOUR
So I can’t remember if I’ve ever described what I do for a living now, and I’m far too lazy to go back and check. Basically, my job is to market and sell bicycle tours, and then provide customer support. However, if you’ve met me, you’d know that biking all over hill and dale is not something that would ever actually occur to me to do. My office saw a problem with that.
New Boss: Madeline, we need you to actually know what you’re selling. Have some idea what you’re talking about, you know. So we’re sending you to Oregon!
Me: I like Oregon! 70 year-olds do these tours, how hard can they be?
The answer? Really fucking hard. The first day we biked 40 miles, and I was pretty sure I was going to die.
The second day we biked 75 miles, and I was really sure I was going to die.
The thing is, you never really notice hills until you’re biking them. Driving comfortably at 55 MPH they wouldn’t even register, but when you’re biking they become insurmountable opponents. And every time you get to the top of a hill, you see a THOUSAND HUNDRED MORE stretching out in front of you. Up and up and up forever.
So the point is, I started my vacation out pretty terrible. Every part of me hurt. At one point I forgot to clip out of my pedals and just tipped over, bruised the crap out of my side and hand and more importantly ego. I was biking with a 71-year-old guy, kicked my ass every day. Plus, I was sleeping on the ground.
Things did eventually get better-my muscles and brain got used to the hours (and hours and HOURS) on a bike, I got used to sleeping on the hard ground, I turned off my phone to avoid the temptation to call The Boy and tell him just what I thought of him.
Now for the most part, the people who participate in our tours are retired. I don’t know why, that’s just the way it is. But it just so happens that on this particular tour, there was another youngster. Practically my age. Blonde and handsome, bright blue eyes. Not the kind of guy I’d usually go for, and besides I was Done with Romance. But as they say, the best laid plans…
After dinner on the last night, we’re sitting around the fire, and this boy turns to me and asks if I want to grab a beer and hike up to the top of the sand dunes with him. I said sure.
What followed belongs in some kind of horrible tween movie, it really does. We sat and drank our beers and watched the sunset, ended up holding hands and snuggling as the stars came out.
It was all very soft and romantic, and we had sex right there on the cooling sand under the Milky Way.
END SCENE.
So now I’m back at work. I’m single and at a job that I understand a little better but still don’t actually like that much. But hey, I got to have sex on a beach.
How’s your summer been?