I was 32 and 27 weeks pregnant with my first child when I really felt it. Lying in bed after a stupid argument with my husband about going to the Poppy Festival. Fat with child, disheveled and in a muumuu. After a few stubborn and passive aggressive barbs I turned my face to the pillow and tried to escape into sleep. My brain switched to my private fantasy channels, the images I conjured up to help me drift away from reality, movies, memories, fantasies, secret parallel lives. With an unseen and intuitive pointer I toggled quickly through all the thoughts that made me feel happy, fulfilled, excited, loved, like I was clicking through files of pictures on my computer.
Mama had mentioned his name earlier today. I hadn’t thought of him in awhile. While sitting on the sofa, the remake of Sabrina came on, and she walked in and said, isn’t that the movie that Terry brought over to the house in Northridge?
I didn’t even remember what she was talking about right away. Then the memory came back. It was my college years. I think it was raining that night. Terry’s Jeep pulled up to the curb of our house in Northridge. I opened the door. He’d brought a copy for Sabrina “For Academy viewing only” – the remake, before it opened in movie theatres.
“We all watched it together,” Mama said, leaning over the couch, “funny how my long term memory still remembers that.”
Hours later, up in the room, post-spat. As I scrolled through my memories, Terry’s “file” was already freshly loaded from morning. I started to remember. Images of his face, his room at the residential hall at college, the walks in the woods, the long talks on the phone and over IM, the email messages, the jealousies of his girlfriends. His gentleness. The way he coaxed a wild ringtail cat to his arms and brought it to me. How he knocked on my door and left a “note” – his name spelled out in sticks and twigs. And no matter how mad I ever got at him, he always responded with such maddeningly infinite patience and gentleness, as if I too, were some wild animal who only needed a patient hand before I let my guard down.
In retrospect, I see my fits of anger as a distancing mechanism. Terry was my boyfriend’s best friend. I could feel him falling in love with me. But he was one of my only friends at UC Santa Cruz. Josh was at Stanford, and sort of “entrusted” me into Terry’s care since I came into school during the winter quarter, straight from Miss Saigon, and I had no friends and was still having an awkward time reacclimating to “civilian” life of kids in my own age group.
In my room, in my bed, with my Pod in my stomach and my back turned toward my husband, I remembered the cards Terry sent me. His handwriting. That one particular card I didn’t know what to do with. Because it ended with “I love you.”
That’s when the tears started, unbidden and sudden. Taking me through all of those memories in an instant, coupled with the old sadness and regret after hearing of his murder in Colombia. There were night walks with Terry, both in the woods and with his disembodied voice over the phone, so calm, quiet, drawing me out and calming me through even the craziest of acid trips.
How funny that Terry rhymes with Barry, I thought, as I sniffled. Barry, another lost one. A sweet, fast, deep love affair that ended with his plane crashing and the long wait in the ICU for his brain to wake up. But it never did, and over one week’s time, his brain, and all his other functions just shut down one by one. It all happened so fast. No one but he could explain or defend our relationship, it was too soon even for me to be introduced to all his family and friends. I never even told my mother about it until I was standing alone, next to his hospital bed, calling her to say, Mama, I’ve been in love with a man, and living with him, and his plane just crashed and now he’s brain dead and I’m all alone with him praying that he’ll wake up.
Another file opened, poignancies rushing out and lashing me. I suddenly thought of why I was upset at all with my husband, and it was silly. I just didn’t get what I wanted in the way I wanted it. So of course my thoughts turned to all the times I did get what I wanted. There’s a lot of times, in my lifetimes, where I have been blessed and spoiled and adored and supported and flooded with love from men who didn’t always give it to me “the right way” but who tried their hardest, nevertheless, for the love of me.
When that thought hit me, another file opened, one that had been encrypted to me, but was actively storing all the love I never let through my firewalls, every “I love you” I never took seriously enough, every look of anguish I turned my back on, every molecule of longing I so easily and coldly blocked in immature selfishness and lack of compassion. All that feeling – from lovers, boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, admirers, postulants, submissives - no matter whether or not the givers had died or moved on to new lives, was still there, and it hit me all at once and I cried harder for the poignancy of it all.
Maybe I’d only ever sought out love for the dopamine rush of it, being the self-professed Dopamine Junkie that I am, and maybe only now, now that I’m married, pregnant, and feeling completely wretched and undesirable, am I feeling the true hit of what Love is.
What TV show(s) will you be watching this season? Why?
Submitted by ducnly.vox.com.
OH MY GOD. There are waaaay too many shows to mention, so how about I just tell you the ones I'll be watching TONIGHT.
Studion 60
Heroes
The Class
How I Met Your Mother
Prisonbreak
Nikki has discovered how to walk with this walking toy thing at MrZ's parents' house. It's hilarious. And cute.
I went to Old Navy last night to buy my LilZ some slacks for a wedding. They had three buggies (that's what we call them in the South, you call them "shopping carts" because you are no fun (kidding)) full of mens clothes at the front of the store. They said $.97, $1.97 and $2.97. Can you believe that? Old Navy had carts full of clothes for less than $3. It was awesome. LilZ picked out three tops he liked. That's cheaper than Wal-Mart, for chrissakes. We rock.
What is your browser's default home page set to?
Submitted by Kelev T. Cat.
Ass Kissing Answer: vox, of course!
The Computer At Home The Entire Family Shares So Must Be Something We All Like Answer: fark
The Computer At Work Used For Nothing Fun (wink, wink) Answer: google
My Laptop is My Domain (aka So Embarrassed to Admit This) Answer: The Leaky Cauldron (Harry Potter News Site)
What's the nerdiest thing about you?
OH MY GOD. Where to begin? I'm such a geography nerd (I'm a cartographer by trade, as is my husband) that I'll critique maps on tv and on the news. And it's not in an interesting way, either. I also describe NON-internet things as very "Web 2.0" and it makes me very dorky. I told my husband the other day that I liked the way our neighbors flowerbeds curved b/c it was very "Web 2.0." I also protect my pens like they were my children. I'm just a well-rounded nerd/geek/dork - depending on who you ask.
My color coded chart showing shows I do watch or want to watch and their premiere dates. I take TV watching VERY seriously.
What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?
In elementary/middle school my favorite subject was always math because I was the top of my class in it. But once I got to High Schoo, my favorites subjects had more to do with my favorite teachers: English some years, Speech one year, Biology, Art - it just depended on the teacher.
How well do you know your next-door neighbors?
I don't know my current neighbors that well, but my last set of neighbors I became such good friends with, I asked the kids to be in my wedding.
