Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Don't Floss Angry


So, been a while. Sorry about that. Since last post I have met an icon, gone back to school, found an amazing woman, was scared by said woman, and then after reconciling myself to being happy with that fear, lost scary woman to the stupidest lapse in communication I've ever been a part of. I've been busy.

School is fantastic, and I have no idea why I waited so long to go back. If you are thinking about it, do it. Don't wait, stop with the excuses, just go do it. It's not nearly as hard as you remember it to be, and school as an adult is a VASTLY different experience than it was as a hormone soaked teenager. I couldn't be happier about my choice.

That said, the "Fuck You" fairy finds me on an almost daily basis. When you're an (ahem) aged man who suddenly finds himself surrounded by 18 year olds, you quickly realize that simply opening your eyes is going to be a constant reminder that time has flown by. On my first day back, I sat next to a pretty coed who was all eyes and smiles. We talked for a bit, no real effort or expectation on my part, but the whole talking to a pretty girl thing was really nice. Class began and as we went around the room introducing ourselves, she got up and said: "Hi, I'm Gemma and I'm 17!"

My eyes flew open as I looked for the door. The urge to go wash myself was overpowering, and I was certain that everyone there was judging me. Don't get me wrong I AM an old (well, oldish) pervert, I just want to be one in private with an age appropriate consenting adult. She was hurt to find that I had scooted away from her, but I couldn't explain it as I didn't quite understand it myself at the time. I have only now, at the end of the semester, begun to talk to her again. In a very formal, standoffish manner of course. That's just one example of a dozen or so old man hits that I've taken recently. I don't know how I got this old this fast, but wow. Just how the Fuck You Fairy rolls I guess. The scenery is sure nice though.

Let's see what else? Oh yes, I met a music Icon. Can't say his name, simply because I'm trying to go into business with him and that would be a monumentally stupid thing to do, but let me just say that the whole experience has been VERY cool. I'm not the type to get star struck, and I didn't here, but I can say that I was very impressed. I've met some heavy hitters in my time around Hollywood, but with only a few notable exceptions (like Harrison Ford) few of them are impressive as individuals. Sure their careers or talents may be stellar, but as people? Not so much. This guy is different though. He would stand out even without his career history and gobs of success. It really was a privilege just to meet him, I don't have words for the fact that he liked my writing. I actually leave in two days to go back for a follow up meeting. Not quite sure what's going to happen as it's still very much "Pie in the sky" at this point, but I figure if you're going up to bat you may as well swing for the fences.

Alright I'll quit beating around the bush and get to the girl, it's what you want to hear about anyway. I'm literally sick over it. I'm hoping that pouring all of this out to online obscurity will help me get my head right for the big meeting this weekend, but we'll see. The problem with being a self contained individual is that when you need to vent, you don't have a lot of options. Sure I have friends, but I feel whiney when I vent too long, so here I am, whining in safety where I can't see your eyes roll in person.

Let me say right off that she is a fantastic woman. Seriously. She has issues like all people, and while I'm not clear if her issues are abnormally big or not, they are rather invasive. So, being the insightful guy that I am, I zeroed in on them pretty quickly and almost jumped ship. Almost. I have a history of being too critical, and as such, am a bachelor. I want to change that, so I stuck around. Then she went and did the damndest thing. She grew on me. She's so damned cute and lovable that I couldn't help it. She also made a conscious effort to earn my affection. She even went so far as to ask me if it was okay to look for my birth mother. She wanted to be the one who gave me that knowledge. I brushed it off as not a big deal, but looking back, that was the single most amazing thing anyone has ever contemplated on my behalf. It scared the absolute shit out of me.

Being a perpetual loner, I was surprised to find that I really began to love being around her. I started to see her quirks as good things. I even began to question if the potential deal breakers were really that big a deal. I started to reconcile the reality of this wonderful woman with the cookie cutter checklist I had always held potential mates up against, and found that she exceeded it in far more ways than she came up short. Then I started to worry.

Was I good enough for her? Was I too old? (Yep, I hate that Fairy) I began to fear her waking up one day and wondering what she was doing next to this gray haired furry guy who wasn't going to be wealthy for at least ten years, couldn't feasibly have kids for another four, and was currently living like an 18 yr old college kid.

Then there were the issues. They plagued me. Like a scab you can't leave alone or a missing tooth. I knew there were things that would grow to be problems later. I knew that if I allowed myself to really get attached, that it would scare her right back. In a lot of ways she reminded me of a wounded animal. All you want to do is love on it, and all it wants is to be loved. Make one false step though, one sudden move, and it will either run off to hurt in solitude or try to eat you with its big saber tooth teeth. I knew that she was getting attached to me, I'd have to be blind not to see the signals lobbed my way, but I had to question the speed of the attachment. Was she really this into me, or was it just the idea of me? This made me pump the brakes a little more.

Either way it didn't really matter. It was already too late you see, I'd really started to care for her. The fact that she was hurting on top of it all made it just that much worse for me. combine that realization with the fact that I was in an emotional mine field where a good sneeze could kill the whole fragile, fleeting thing and you see my dilemma. "Warning: This way lies co-dependence!" My mind kept screaming at me, but I kept on like the stubborn ox that I am. However my one concession to common sense was the fact that I went slowly. Very, very slowly. Which coincidentally, was the main reason it all died.

To make a long story (juicy though it may be) short and respectful, she had a habit of running off whenever anything upset her. To be fair this only happened twice, but both times it happened were occasions of relationship import. It left me wondering what it was I'd done wrong. No explanations, no reasons why, just gone. After the first time I expressed my severely negative reaction to this. I did so diplomatically, but I let it be known that I found it unacceptable. If I upset you, tell me. That way I can fix it or explain why I disagree with you, but don't just run off assuming the worst of me. The second time, I figured she knew how much I hated this whole retreating thing, so it must have been for a really good reason. Not wanting to pressure her (wounded animal) and really hoping to avoid running her off at this point, I stayed away. No pestering calls, no texts, no whining, no alpha male displays. A terrible little inner voice even suggested that maybe her running off was a good thing. She was too close, and too chaotic. No good was going to come of this, maybe it was all for the best. I found myself hating that voice. For the first time in my life, logic wasn't my friend. I even went so far as to tell my few venting friends it was for the best, but part of me didn't believe it. Even now, I still don't despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

So three days go by and no word. Logic was finally pushed off the throne when I found one of her hairs (she sheds like crazy) on my face upon waking, and emotion took surging control of my mind for the first time in thirty years. We made a few mistakes that day, emotion and I. First, was in my overly cautious state I decided to text her instead of calling. I felt that my tone of voice might guilt her too much, or let her in on my emotional state. I thought she would still be upset and didn't want to add to that, so text it was. Stupid stupid stupid.

The text wasn't inflammatory despite my mounting frustration. Basically I said that I knew she was dealing with some stuff, and that I still had problems with a few things I wont mention here (but included her running off). I then said that she should talk to me when she's figured things out.

She replied with something along the lines of "God knows when that will be."

I was numb. I didn't understand anything about what had just happened, and the red flags were waving. I still had no idea why she's run off in the first place, and as I tried to piece possibilities together for the hundredth time a childhood memory of a wounded horse running away from a well meaning veterinarian popped into my head. Beauty in pain is a terrible thing to behold, and I knew I'd somehow stepped on the hidden landmine. The nasty little voice piped up and told me that she had finally realized who and what I was and was taking the opportunity to ditch me. I told that voice to fuck off, and decided to wait it out. She would realize that I was waiting for her to talk to me, and would call when she'd thought over what Id said.

She never called. In my rarely used pride, I told myself it was for the best.

Weeks went by and she called me out of the blue. She was hurting and needed help. I found that I still wanted to help her, even though I had a feeling that I was about to take a kick to the junk. Over coffee she ignored our issues and focused on her new ones. As she described an incident with a new boyfriend, I was screaming at her on the inside. "New Boyfriend?!? What the Hell? I am the worlds biggest asshole!" That's when I realized my mistake. We had always been operating at different speeds relationship wise, and my mistake was that when I pulled over to wait on her to catch up, she was actually barreling right along at full tilt. I'm an idiot.

I thought she was working through things. Things that will take a while to sort out no matter what she does, so I was simply trying to keep my head up as I waited like the patient little idiot that I am. Meanwhile she'd jumped right back into the craziness without a backwards glance. I was irrelevant, and in that moment, I finally knew it. At some point in the last few weeks she had dismissed me altogether. I have no idea how long it had taken her to find a new guy, but It was obviously quick. I felt more and more stupid as the conversation went on.

She also dropped the bomb on me that she had taken my text as a breakup. That I had broken up with her over the most impersonal form of communication possible. It hit me then that she didn't really know me at all, and that that was MY FAULT. I went too slow, too cautious, and too logical. I tried to be the good guy and wait it out, meanwhile she's off with someone new. My imagination ran wild. Actually, it's still zipping around the countryside as I type this.

I'm so angry right now I could chew nails. We later had a conversation (again over text cuz I was afraid Id yell) where I revealed a bit about how I was feeling, but when I realized what I was doing and how unfair it was, I snapped off a remark how I had to go floss. Lacking anything else to do that might possibly take my mind off the mess I'd made, I actually did go floss and wound up tearing my mouth up. My teeth are still sensitive days later.

This hurts. This massive frustration that I can't do anything about. I'm not used to problems without solutions. I'm very good at solutions and take pride in dismantling obstacles. There are a lot of reasons to stay away from her, but there's one really strong one that just won't let me stop thinking about her.

The final twist of the knife was that not two hours later I was walking across campus and bumped into her with the new guy hanging on her. I make that same walk at the same time every day, and this was the first time I'd ever seen her. She gave me her beautiful smile and I had the uncontrollable urge to kick puppies even though I LOVE puppies. He knew something was up in that way that all guys know, and I muttered something unintelligible as I looked away, hoping to control myself for just a little bit longer. I kept walking. That's actually something I'm kinda proud of. Apparently my control is still strong like bull.

I'm acting like a moon struck tweener. If I'm not careful I'm going to go do something stupidly macho just to reassert my manliness. Even if it's just to myself.

Alright, enough whining. Time to go figure out how to impress a modern day icon. After all this, how hard can it be?