She Was.

It is oppressively, unbearably hot. Much too hot for thinking, being, languid. Slow.

Tick.Tick.Tick.

And [inhale] – [exhale] wait.

For everything.

I do not approve of Depeche Mode’s, Enjoy the Silence – the dance version. It makes me feel old. Sleeping with a 22 year old boy, likewise. And I’m mad at myself for getting caught up in age. Which should be irrelevant. But it can’t be. Because the truth of the matter is, I did not expect to go from wedding plans, from the rest of my life, to drunk fucking of 22 year old exceedingly pretty boys that remind me too much of what I’ve lost, what is gone. I can’t shake the feeling that nothing is as it should be. And I’m mad at myself for thinking in shoulds, when I should be thinking in acceptance. Acceptance tastes like resignation and I can’t quite settle into it. I am fight fight fighting and winning at nothing.

Sex with this boy/man is quiet. Like two lonely people coming together for something not quite enough. The giveaway is in the artificial familiar intimacy that froths out and over us both as we act out the best of lovers past. At least I am. Pretense. He needs me to tell him that it is ok to leave, that the guilt he feels towards his family will not follow him out and into the dry desert sand. Being somewhat of an expert on running out on family and friends, I’m well placed, but predictably, necessarily, I can’t ease his guilt. He will do that for himself. I tell him this, but he can’t know. I can and can’t be. Later, we will decide to stay friends.

The nights are long and too hot. Pants are rolled up high into shorts and tshirts are sweat and ice water wet cling. Drinks are served, fridges are restocked, counters are wiped. My face is red, hair damp, plastered to my neck, curling over my forehead. An armful of towels, plastic crate balanced on my hip, I’m walking through the crowd, tired, annoyed. I’m avoiding one lover, meeting another. Gossip flows furiously in the bar and he hasn’t spoken to me since I’ve been caught in it’s current. Instead, he shows me all the ways that I now irritate him. I’m tired of being scowled at, and I’m tired of hearing the crash of empty drink cans thrown in my direction behind the bar. He wants me to look up at him but I’ve not once met his scowling eyes. I refuse to acknowledge him. And then there he is. All of him. Blocking my path, looking down at me, again. I dart around him but he grabs my arm and as he spins me around to face him, the crate crashes to the sticky ground.  ‘What?’, I yell at him over the music. ‘I just want to know how you are’ he yells back. I tell him that I’m good, that I’m well, and then because I can, I smile and say ‘you’re not ok are you?‘ and when he shakes his head no, when I feel his hands on my hips, pulling me close, when I feel my lips brush his ear as I’m speaking, when I feel his chest warm against mine and that honest flood of feeling washes through me, I reach up, draw his head down to mine and kiss him, right there in front of everyone, because I want to, because I can and because I can’t not.

I have no idea what I am doing, but somewhere, in all of this, I am running and hiding.

Standing  on the smokey sidewalk, I was drunkenly reassured by the 23 year old girl standing next to me, that 34 is good. She looked at me, big earnest grey eyes and almost shouted ‘you know all the games, you know all the rules, and most importantly, you know when to break them – I can’t wait to be 34′. I smiled at her and nodded my head enthusiastically. ‘You know what?  You’re damn right’ I slurred replied. Back inside, drink in hand, eyes locked on the much younger boy I’d recently disappointed my enthusiasm faded. I don’t know any better than I did at 24,  30, at 16. Nothing much changes. When it comes to relationships, when it comes to emotions, when it comes to love, I’m still grasping for something seemingly just beyond my understanding.

Behind the bar is intimate. Touching, bumping, dancing, laughing. I hadn’t really noticed him before. He rubs my shoulders at the end of every shift. Sweet. In my head, way, way too young. Easy to dismiss. Pretty. A drunken conversation. About fathers who leave and mothers who stay behind and struggle. About living without and the things boys (men) will do to survive, to make do. About living far from home, the country, the ocean, about missing. My legs in his lap, his hands inching up my thighs, rubbing, kneading, soothing. His lips brushing my ear, and I’m suddenly lonely. He isn’t a boy. I need to clear my head, so we walk through the city. He carries my shoes, my bag. I’m barefoot, walking through this place that really is home. It’s my first walk in a city that’s sleeping. We are alone. He is good company. I’m surprised. We talk anti-fashion. He picks shoes for me. He tells me all that he’s noticed. We stop and steal a poster because we find it funny and because we can. I’m laughing so much, I need to sit down, catch my breath. He doesn’t let me. He offers his hand, and when I take it, he twirls me down the street. No music dancing. I’m smiling and watching our reflection in the shop windows. He spins me out and pulls me in and I realise I’m having fun. When was the last time? He dips me, I roll my eyes, and then he kisses me, and I’m surprised – again, and I’m curious, and I’m wanting. I take him home.

He tells me he wants to please me. It’s his thing. He wants to please me. We sit on my couch and talk. It isn’t what I’m expecting. I thought my invitation was clear but he won’t play my game. He wants to talk to me. He wants me to listen. He does and so I do. And I like it.  Hours later we go to bed, and I’m surprised by the sweetness. He strokes my hair. We are the same size. His size is familiar. I’m stung by this. I’m tired and with my eyes closed it could be him. I hold him close. For a second I allow myself to pretend. I look and his soft milk eyes are watching my face. I let him see and he smiles and smiles and smiles. Later when I’m expecting him to leave. He stays. He’s in my bed, limbs sprawled, one hand holding my thigh. It’s too close, too familiar. He tells me he can’t sleep. That he stays awake for days. I want to give him something back, and I know I can give him this. I take his same size hand in my own and I rub. His hands are soft, smooth, his fingernails unbitten. He isn’t him. I rub each knuckle, his palms, and as his breathing slows, I realise he is lonely too. We’re alone together in our loneliness and I’m glad he is here. I wait until he falls asleep, tattooed arms and legs still. I sneak out of my room and finally fall asleep on the couch. He wakes me in the afternoon. Hand on my cheek. He is leaving the state in 28 days time. Wants to spend them with me. Asks me. I’m ambivalent. The sun is too bright and I am too old, and he’s a boy again.

It’s my birthday when he walks behind the bar. I’m shy and feeling stupid. I’m shy because when I see his face, I see that smile and I’m pleased. I like him, and I’m feeling stupid because he is so very much younger than me. And this birthday, this new number, it’s hard to swallow because nothing is as I thought it would be, as it should be. I’m distant, and the more he tries the more I pull away. I’m too aware and not aware enough. He makes a gesture that I refuse. He wants the dj to play me a song and I don’t let him. The dj is my friend, he is jealous. Hurt. The more I see that he is bothered, the more I bother him. I want to put him in his place. I’m bitter and I’m angry and those fucking ghosts won’t leave me alone. This boy, I think, has no claim on me. I’m angry because he is taking me seriously, and expects me to take him seriously in return. I just want light or forever. There is no inbetween in my thinking. And he can’t be either.

I spend the early hours of the morning with friends. Vodka in hand I’m laughing and talking and flirting with men I have no interest in. I don’t see him watching me, and when I do, I don’t stop. I’ve found something missing in this new way of being. I’m happy. He finally speaks to me and tells me to go home. I’m genuinely confused and when I ask him if he is coming with me, he tells me again, that he really only wanted to play me a song. I don’t see the relevance. It’s so childish. I’m dismissive, and I’m rude. I walk away, and when I’m ready, when I’m done, I go home. Alone. I text him later and he doesn’t answer and I’m sorry.

At 34 I know:

I find it difficult to tolerate jealousy. If someone shows me their jealousy, I punish them with more. This really doesn’t work.

I find it difficult to recognise that I may mean something, that someone may feel something. For me. I do not expect to be cared for. I do not expect to be wanted. I do not expect to matter. I do not know why. This really doesn’t work.

I have spent my entire adult life looking for the relationship. The one that will stick. The one that will be all or nothing. And I’ve been saving the best of myself for this one relationship. And this really doesn’t work. Because, in the meantime, all those lovely grays, the color I live in, I’ve missed them. And I have missed them.

To be loved. To feel loved. I’m rethinking what this may mean. Perhaps, to feel love, is to be danced around a darkened city street by a boy just because he wants your smile. Perhaps, to be loved, is a song played just for you on your birthday. And perhaps to love is to allow that song to be played, and to blush red and say thank you graciously and genuinely because it’s a gesture, and love doesn’t crush gestures. Perhaps, love, a bigger kind of love, is getting exactly what you need sent to you, exactly when you need it. Perhaps, love involves allowing the veil of insecurity and baggage that covers your sight to lift. Every now and then. Perhaps, love, to feel love, comes in small moments. In strangers who smile as they hand you your morning coffee after a night spent keeping vigil over a hospital bed; in the kindness of a story shared; with a boy, who is leaving the state in 28 days time; with a friend that doesn’t give up on you when your being your most obtuse. Perhaps that is were love lives and breathes. In those grays and not in the forever I’ve been so busy searching for.

That to have your heart broken. Completely fucking obliterated. Sometimes. May just be the exact thing I needed.

At 34, I know, that as much as I continue to fuck up, to recognise too little too late, to learn the hard way, I am, finally, all grown up.

At 34, I don’t know how to fix things with this boy. I know that I very much want to. I know I want these 28 days. For the both of us. I rarely ask, but advice is most certainly welcome.

I watched you walk across the room today. From far away and up high. I know when you’re in the room. I see you. I know you don’t like that. Sorry. Anyway, I watched you. It’s easy to watch you. I like watching you move.  The way you choose your steps. You hold yourself separate. I wonder if you know that. Standing far away and up high and alone, I liked seeing you. Your shirt, out over your trousers. The self conscious way you pull it away from your belly. When you walk you hold your arms almost stiff by your side. You didn’t look at ease. You hold your head to the side (right) when you’re walking through the room. You hold your head to the side (right) when you’re listening to me speak too. I couldn’t see your eyes from so far away. I couldn’t look into them. So I thought that perhaps I might be safe. And I smiled when I thought that. That word. Safe. The size of you. Every time I see you I’m suprised fresh by the size of you. I’ve wondered why. Why your size pleases me so. And, I thought that perhaps it was the promise in your size. I’ve been so focused on fucking you see. Fucking you. Fucking me. Fucking him. Him fucking her. So I think maybe I got a bit confused. Because tonight I realised that your size, you, the sheer weight of you. You’re solid. To me. Safe. I told you that in a note. I feel safe with you. And I was surpised again by my own stupid thoughts because I’ve always preferred lovers closer to my own size. I thought there was an equality in that. And now, now, when I stand near you, I have to try not to inch nearer still. To tuck myself under one your wings. To burrow down in the solid weight of you. To shelter under the crook of your arm, like I would under a weathered tree in a storm. And as I thought this, I picked up my pen and I wrote safe on the back of my right hand. And later on, standing outside, right after you told me that I wasn’t ok again, (I didn’t even bother answering this time, you need me to not be ok it seems. And you, at least, get what you want.) I watched you as you read my hand. I wondered what you made of safe scribbled there. I wondered if you knew that it was a message just for you. (I’m safe too.) I was going to ask you but I was too caught up in the curious combination of the casual indifference in your voice and the heat of your eyes on my suddenly shy hand. I stood still for a while after you left. Without a backward glance. At me. Watching you walk away. And I thought, that perhaps I can’t do this. Perhaps I don’t want to. Because it seems I can, after all, let you in and you can, after all, hold me away. And you have already held me close and I have already struggled away. And while I was standing there, watching you, I wondered if perhaps you and I aren’t from the same soured place. And if perhaps the moment has not already passed. And I was sad because it seems that I can still feel loss and I can still feel the small,  invisible strings of me, unfurling and curling, swaying out to you. And I want to be loved. And I don’t know if you can. If anyone can.

It doesn’t suprise me when he is sitting relaxed in my favourite chair. When I hear his voice loud as I turn the corner. When I duck, weave and hide. When I’m crouched in the throbbing bass dark, cigarette dangling between my fingers, first light sneaking over the eucalpytus I’ve missed so long, and his eyes stay fixed on me, daring me to look at him. When I’m wilfully blind. When the challenge starts to hurt and he wins and I’m forced to look, the feeling floods through me. When I want to scream. I will not play this game. When I’m suddenly angry. Frustrated, needy, desperately wanting. I run, he seeks. And each time, when I’m caught in some corner, some staircase, some dimly lit space, there is quiet over the noise, alone in the everyone, he touches me. He looks down at me. Always down at me. And he asks me the same question over and over ‘are you ok?’. I answer differently the same each time. Yes. And I do not know why he keeps asking, the answer will not change, but I think maybe it’s the wrong question.

And then life happens. And I cannot avoid him. I’m forced to call him. I don’t. I send a text, hoping he is already in bed and won’t see it. I need his help. I don’t ask for it. I outline the barest of facts. I ask for nothing. And within minutes he is there. Incredibly, he is not alone. She is with him. He goes to talk to them while she holds my hand and I cry. She tells me that he wanted to come alone, but we’re friends, her and I. She wants to be here too. I sit with her. Mute. He comes out and sits by my side. We don’t touch and I don’t look at him. He stays close. Eventually, he makes me smile. We’re in this place again. The three of us. And I’m thinking, fucking triangles. And I’m not ready for this. Not ready to be alone. Not ready to be without. Not grown up enough. There’s too much hurt. And too much sadness. He doesn’t ask me if I’m ok. And if I could laugh, I would. He is quiet when she leaves the room. I think we won’t speak at all. He looks at me. ‘I know’.

Later, we’re talking about life. That happens. That happened to him. That happened to me. His wounds fresh. Mine older. I’m so scared for my not tough enough scab. Suddenly he’s angry. Slamming doors. Walking away. And she sits still while I’m opening doors and following and asking him to wait and he’s stopping every few metres and yelling at me. He’s fine. He’s ok. And I think, ‘but I didn’t ask’. And then he has nowhere else to go and I’m sitting with him and everything I haven’t said falls out of my tired mouth. Neither one of us is ok, I tell him. Neither one of us is fine. And I’m screaming at him to let me in. To just fucking let me in. To let me in. And he’s crying, and he’s shouting back, telling me that he doesn’t let anyone in, and then my name over and over again. And we’re quiet, together by his side, my mind racing, and I think that everything he’s been asking me, I’ve finally answered. And all that I have kept inside, all that I’ve choked on, has just been screamed back at me.

And I don’t understand anything anymore. I don’t know what it is that we have. Less than nothing. Maybe more. It seems the push is the pull and I want out as much as I want in.

We communicate via notes. Words on paper, falling into laps, squeezed between palms. My fussed over handwriting. His electronic scrawl. Slips of paper pass furtively, hidden in pockets, read over and over, deleted. His last note:

“I’m sorry. I just can’t do it. It will only complicate things more for me.”

I’m taken by suprise. What I’m offering is anything but complicated. It’s ease, comfort, his need.

I reply with reassurances. Of friendship, ease, more comfort. I am flippant, unconcerned. I offer care.

Later, I think about my offer. I think about his words “It will only complicate things more for me”. The tears come, abruptly, hot. I’m stinging and I’m confused by my reaction, his reaction. The feeling. I don’t want this to end. It means something. He means something. I mean something. Alone, I blush deep red. I am always so surprised, so unprepared.

I’ve missed it.

Later still, I write an unsent letter to a ghost:

Dearest T,

Goodbye. Finally. Thank you for all you taught me. I forgive you. More good came from you, from us, than bad. I had the time of my life with you. I will never stop feeling love for you. I’m not angry at you anymore. I forgive you. I let you go. I let us go. I know how now. Because, I am ready – I want – to love again. Goodbye, love, goodbye.

I go to work. A head full of avoidance. I don’t want to see him. I don’t know what to say. Everything I’ve ever said has been wrong. Dishonest. I can’t be ease anymore. Now that I think I know what I feel. Now that I think I know what he feels. It’s small, but it’s strong. The pull. It’s not difficult once I get there. To smile. Sway to the music. Lose myself in the lyrics. I feel him before I see him. The pull. He’s standing behind me, in the shadows, under the stage. I turn around. We’re not alone. I’m asked questions, I answer. Smiling. Still moving to the music. I know he’s watching me and I want to show him that I’m unaffected. It is complicated. Now. For me, too complicated. He knows nothing about you, I tell myself. He will not see through your smile. Smile. I look up at him. Make eye contact. He’s smiling big. Embarrassed. Shy. I smile in return, equally big, equally embarrassed. I lower my gaze. For a fraction of a second I allow my smile to falter. And then I’m concentrating again, smiling, nodding, yes, yes I’ll close the bar. And he waits until we are alone, and he slips his big hand over my small one, something he’s done time and time again, but I’ve never really noticed before now and he looks down at me, with those crinkly blue eyes and he says ‘you’re not ok are you?’ and    he    sees    right    through    me.

Holding hands, we communicate.  The pull.