You again

Mike was a senior at Michigan State when we were first dating, and he became one of two recipients of a major fellowship to enter the PhD program in English lit at Emory University.  So a year into our relationship, we prepared to part ways, as college sweethearts often do, and I made the trip to Georgia with him in late August to help him get settled.  His parents were coming the next day with the U-Haul.  I was also doing well academically, having been recommended by a prof for the English Honors program at the University of Michigan entering my Junior year. 

We had a nice drive south, taking the long way through the mountains.  In Atlanta, though, things turned strange.  Mike couldn’t understand the woman at the Wendy’s drive-thru, because of her accent, and it triggered some kind of panic.  Back at the hotel, he became increasingly withdrawn, until he was curled up on the bed staring at the wall.  Finally he declared that he couldn’t do this thing, and he would tell everyone tomorrow.  Neither I nor his parents could talk him into putting in at least the year that was covered by the fellowship he'd been offered.  He disappointed Emory (someone else could have used that fellowship), his profs who’d gone out of their way to get him the sweet deal, and his parents, who told him they accepted his decision but that he wouldn’t be returning to Michigan to live in their house.

So that was the inauspicious beginning of our 13 years of living together.  Having nowhere else to go, he asked to move in with me and my college roommate, and I said okay.  Then he asked me to drop out of college and work for a year “or so,”  so we could save enough money to move to Boston and attend school there together, me finishing my undergrad and he going to grad school.  I didn’t know that I wanted this or anything like it.  I had just been prepared to let our relationship breathe, living in separate states pursuing individual dreams, possibly meeting new people and drifting apart; and now, the very next day, I was being asked to show a substantial, married person's level of devotion.  

I yielded to his powers of persuasion.  He worked at a packing and shipping company, quickly shooting up the ranks to become manager (within months), and I worked several clerical and tech jobs at the hospital.  A year and one semester later, I re-entered the University of Michigan, after it became clear that Mike was never going to follow through on the Boston angle.   I was by then two years older than my graduating class, having already taken a year before going to college after high school. 

Mike aced the LSAT and got into the University of Michigan law school the following year, and as always, was very successful using a moderate amount of effort. One of his classmates marveled that he did far better than she did on the Property final using *her* notes.  In his summer internships he was productive, clever, handsome, tall and brilliant, and he was loved.  They missed him at the Mail Shoppe.

Mike routinely expressed doubts as to whether I could make him happy, and whether he had had enough experience with women to know what he truly wanted.  It bothered him that I had had a handful of older lovers before moving to Michigan, even though my overly sexualized youth was not a thing to envy; he didn't like it that a younger lover had died tragically, just before I started college, and that I was still sad about his death.  

And for some reason I wake up this morning remembering all of this, as if it happened yesterday and not a lifetime ago.

 
 

Fire

"I'll use your bosom
for my pillow, little darling
when the world's on fire..."

i.e., 

there's no stopping
the apocalypse but
this is nice

Love

love has many faces
most of them
inappropriate

like

i was wide asleep
now in love i am
fast awake

like
 
memorizing his clothes today
in case i'm asked 
to describe them

like 

euthanization
we all know
i killed her

clues

little birds
eroticist
Anais Nin


quack
representation 
pettifoggery


a la depeche mode
but even more
synth-laden 


barfly
living the
lush life


ska!
soon you'll be
rocksteady

Broke

Two days ago a woman with a young son approached me and Daniel in the Westgate parking lot.  She needed money for one more night at the Motel 6 before getting a spot at Alpha House.  I noticed that her neck was scraped raw and bloody.  "I'm broke, and I don't know what to do," she said, with tears welling.  "Mom, I'm hungry," said the young boy.  "I know, I know," she replied.  I gave them the six bucks I had, told her I wished it was more.  Yes, this could have been a routine for this woman.  I've still been haunted by it.  The sequence of their approach and our interaction intrudes and recurs like the pivotal moment of a meaningful dream.  Daniel was quiet for hours, too, after that.  Our symmetry with that mother and son didn't escape him, I believe.  There but for the grace of god.  It doesn't really matter whether her story is "true."  I am singled out by that moment in time, my reaction to her is real, it's unexpected, and it means something. 

So many have fallen by the wayside.  So many are talented and motivated and successful.  There's pity I feel for some, and there's envy of others.  Same energy.  I'll buy your sad story and hope you're not conning me.  I still devote myself to whom and what I love, but it's been hard to accept that I'm now a good 15 years beyond the cuteness and youth that once softened the edges of my mediocrity.  

I may take a healthy break from my aspirations.  This morning I asked myself what would happen if I didn't fill my spare time with inferior singing and so-so puzzle-making.  What would I find out?