Hardships of a Muggle in Montana
Just another sassy, conservative, annoying, pearl/sperry wearing, white girl.
My Dad called on a Tuesday night, I usually don’t take it very seriously, usually just him checking in. We’re so busy that we call each other when we can and if it mutually works out then we chat for a while.
Then he called two more times, and so I answered, kind of annoyed because I had four other friends over studying for a big test the next day. When I answered in this questioning tone, he started crying and told me some news that I knew was going to come, but I wasn’t expecting it for several more years.
Grandpa has an abdominal aneurysm on his aorta, meaning death is coming nearer and nearer. In some ways, I feel like we’ve just read the end of the novel before reading it (I did this in the final Harry Potter because I’m certain that if Harry died I would have refused to read it).
The existentialist in me wants to remind all of my family that it is just an exit somewhere else. The nurse in me wants to tell everyone that this is a blessing because it will be immediate and without pain. But the granddaughter in me wants to illogically find every intervention available to fix the problem. My grandfather may be 95, but he was supposed to be around for forever. We don’t see cases like this in the hospital because individuals that have this diagnosis don’t survive. They just don’t.
We were supposed to dance together at my wedding- I have this jealous complex about my older cousins that are married and have these photos with grandpa holding them or dancing with them, and the frustration comes from this place of, “you didn’t ever visit grandpa and grandma and you never called, and you are exploiting their cuteness and love for you to get these incredible photos.” Which is so illogical, and so unfair. This summer we planned on celebrating his 95th year of life with all of our family. He was supposed to hold any future children I have, and again I find myself in the same frustrating, jealous place of him holding my cousins’ children.
Today I visited him for what will probably be the last time before his aneurysm ruptures and he ultimately dies. I expected him to greet me with some sort of cathartic advice. I was a little frustrated at what I had imagined for this day and what it turned out to be. He was supposed to give me this great insight on how the world works, or outline some impending life events. Instead, he told me to drive safe. I gave him a kiss. And I left.
Standing outside a bar, surrounded by friends, wearing a dress
Random 30-something in a cowboy hat, completely unprompted lays his hand on my shoulder and interrupts my conversation:
I can't believe you've got five, six guys around you and none of them have offered you their coat!
Me:
Well actually I'm perfectly content, and they shouldn't have to sacrifice their coats for me just because they are men and I'm a woman.
Cowboy hat:
But I can see you shivering! *takes off coat and tries to put it on my shoulders*
Me:
No thank you, that won't be necessary. I'm good. I'm really good. I have the warmth of friendship within me.
Asshat:
*continues to advance* I'm just trying to be a gentlema--
Me:
Do you see this lipstick? Does this look like a mouth that doesn't know how to ask for what it wants? *drops mic and turns back around*
Flirtations with DC
I recently was back in DC for a short jaunt- but there was something so very different about the experience. I was in this amazing city, one that I loved deeply, and even vowed to move to one day. One that I found the best version of myself in. One that I felt whole in.
Why was this experience so different? I was missing the people that I shared those boundless memories with. These incredible individuals that I recently rendezvoused with in Denver. Our adventures and laughs were unceasing, our conversations were bold and we held fast to a collective goal: fun. The house we stayed in was empty and ominous when I visited.
As I’m delving into a new relationship of sorts- figuring out the ins and outs of how you ‘date’ from the beginning, questioning feelings, sharing awkward kisses (When is it okay to use tongue? Why is he using tongue?), when should we be having sleepovers?, figuring how to cuddle with this new human being with a different stature, is it too early to talk about commitment?, when is it appropriate to tell my parents?, are we even dating? etc.
It’s weird, though, as I’m experiencing all of these 'pre-dating’ items on a checklist of sorts- I can’t help but apparate to what is now over 4 years ago- a time when these 'pre-dating’ checklist items were being crossed off with a human being that I thought for a while would be the only one I would have to go through this list with- a human that I loved and still love for many reasons.
There is this concept that we delved over that included a philosophy that he had about life, this enveloping theory that the Earth will explode and everything will start exactly over again- so we will be here, indefinitely, recreating events- experiencing chemical changes, sharing these same experiences again, just later. Perhaps, though, we’ve already experienced them, we just don’t realize. There is a weird promise in this- that we’ve already made it through everything in life. So there.
As I’m going through this checklist, I’m feeling as though I’m reliving some of these same things, and it’s weird that he’s not the one I’m experiencing them with. I’m with this new guy who is also great and has his life somewhat together. Who shares a love for literature, and laughing. Who is super attractive and so intelligent. So as I’m experiencing these things, with this new guy, I can’t help but apparate to this time where I first experienced these things. Partially to gain insight, and partially because those are still incredibly happy memories of finding myself.
I wish I was dating in DC. I wish that I was in a new location, where these memories of past relationships can’t haunt the new one. Where I don’t apparate during a makeout- where I don’t react the same way to the same words from two very different humans- where I don’t close my eyes mid-snuggle and immediately forget who is wearing that cologne, and playing with my hair that way- where I don’t say the same things to encourage and love, where each relationship can be distinctly different. And then I remember, it is the people, not necessarily the location that makes it what it is- I cannot escape these experiences.
“The thing is, someday the sun is going to die and everything on Earth will freeze. This will happen. Even if we end global warming and clean up our radiation. The complete works of William Shakespeare, Monet’s lilies, all of Hemingway, all of Milton, all of Keats, our music libraries, our library libraries, our galleries, our poetry, our letters, our names etched in desks. I used to think printing things made them permanent, but that seems so silly now. Everything will be destroyed no matter how hard we work to create it. The idea terrifies me. I want tiny permanents. I want gigantic permanents! I want what I think and who I am captured in an anthology of indulgence I can comfortingly tuck into a shelf in some labyrinthine library.”
“We’re so young. We’re so young. We’re twenty-two years old. We have so much time. There’s this sentiment I sometimes sense, creeping in our collective conscious as we lie alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out- this it is somehow too late. That others are somehow ahead. More accomplished, more specialized. More on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. That it’s too late now to BEGIN a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.”
Proposition
There is a proposition to be made soon.
I believe it is coming. I won’t make it, but deep down I kind of hope you will.
I will react one of two ways.
1. I will sit down with you and write out the facts like a company merger. How things are going to look different. How I’m going to be more confident, and demanding not ‘needy’. How I will stand up for myself, and we will have fights and that would be okay. I will force you to consider marriage as an option someday, not tomorrow, or next week, but maybe in the next 2-3 years, or this won’t work. I will force you to read all my self help books, and delve deeper into your soul. How I won’t sacrifice my every weekend to be with you. How you will make an equal effort to see me.
2. I will cry and spew out a soliloquy of all the beautiful things I’ve found about myself post-break up. I will shout at the complete and utter madness I put myself through endlessly trying to be someone I wasn’t. I will sing Beyoncé, I will spew out all the self help books I’ve read, hoping something will stick. I will focus on the fact that I will have a tendency to revert back to the old girl that would settle, and would go with the flow. The girl that needed ‘just’ a minute, or was ‘just’ your girlfriend.
There is a proposition to be made soon.
I believe it is coming. I won’t make it, but deep down I kind of hope you will.
Free
I have this ridiculous ailment that has prevented me from achieving optimal happiness for years. It prevents me from allowing myself to ‘feel’ things, or to ask myself how I feel about something.
There have been may situations, relationships, friendships, where I failed to ask myself- “How does that make you feel?” Instead, I make an accommodation, or say something because I think it’s what the other person wants to hear.
Failing to ask this question has forced me to endure, rather than experience many of life’s challenges. It has forced me to prolong things that should not be prolonged. It is non-productive. It has created a barrier between me and well, me.
My core desired feeling is liberation.
I want to feel liberated.
Liberated from pleasing others.
Liberated from my own self doubt.
Liberated from my anxiety of the future.
Liberated from my lack of confidence in situations.
Liberated from the extensive self-sacrifice i’ve been doing.
Liberated from the blockade between myself and the self I suppress.
As Danielle LaPorte challenged, “What will I do to feel the way I want to feel?”
They cut all the ‘love locks’ from the bridge in France. It’s time for me to cut mine.
