on bailing

You should know that I’ve hidden things from this site, from you, many a time. I’ve been afraid to show you who what lies behind the (at times strained) wit. Of hurting my mother and father. Of being fired. Of shattering your image of me as a somewhat stable woman who eats Easy Mac and who might someday pickle her cats in Tupperware containers. No more. I’m incredibly vulnerable right now. You might as well see it; the record will stand for me and my grandcats if not to help your workday pass with that much more ease.

It started out as an innocent introduction, turned down by me given its reliance on phone conversation. I don’t do the phone. Ask the dozens including those in my bloodline who try to reach me daily and who get an answering machine or a promise of a call back. I’m a telephonephobe who spends hundreds of her hard-earned dollars per year on a technology she avoids. I don’t like being that accessible. Having you hear my voice, quivering at times, or at the other end, its resolve and strength. Fuck nonverbal communication. I’m out there when you hear me, telling you about my father’s progressing illness, the beautiful disasters that are the ties I’ve broken entirely of my own accord, of my fear of amounting to nothing of consequence. I wear the written word as much more of a shield, minutes of strategic adjectives and the choice of an “I” rather than a “you.” My voice has no automatic checks.

Things have been ridiculously difficult for me in the past year. Before 31, I never understood just how it was that folks had difficult years, even difficult decades. Did they not just pick up the pieces and move on, knowing that something delightful awaited them at the next turn? Apparently they do. I did. I worked for money and worked for growth and joined softball and bocce and ate and Pinot-ed my way across DC with not a regret. I kept my side of the street clean in each and every human relationship. Nothing took. And not in the way that you think. I enjoyed it all. I just never felt anything deeply. The stir in your stomach and the entertainment of spending time with someone orbiting with you in shared space. I am complete. Looking to share this new self in all her beauty, yet finding no one to fit the bill.

And then I found him. Kim will shake her head upon reading this post at its overwhelming level of estrogen and vow to buy me an awful draft beer or five at the O’s game on Saturday, the game at which he should have been touching my knee and laughing at my excessive use of puns. The He that isn’t by my side. Who chose to stay on the cul de sac, to play it safe rather than keep a Friday night reservation for wine and a dessert discussed long before dinner.

I knew quickly that I had not felt this way about a person in years. I have not been the person I am right now and felt this way about another . . . ever. I had absolutely no instinct to run, no push to change this man who actually admitted in spoken voice to a penchant for French cuffs. For the first time in my young life, I accepted a man for who he was; for the first moment in his young life, he was taken as he came. There was quiet talk of front porch Adirondack chairs and plans for Napa and pet names and middle-of-the-night marathon cell calls. I welcomed our knowing looks at future corporate functions and stolen kisses on the front lawn that would surely embarrass the neighbors. This was a relationship on the very verge of blossoming into something both of us knew could - and goddammit, would - be spectacular. The magnitude of which neither of us had before experienced. Anticipation and joy and a truly uncanny fit that afforded us access into one another’s heads. I won’t exaggerate and I won’t minimize it. I still believe in the absolute force that we could be, and I know in my heart that he does too.

But when things got too close, when we were coming to fruition and plans were no longer theory but a tangible touch of skin and minds, he ran. He shut down with some warning, red flags I didn’t want to see. His explanation was a cocktail of My gut says I can’t do this and I’m not ready to be happy yet and an acknowledgement that I was the best thing yet to cross his path. I can’t help but thinking that maybe we met at the wrong time, Kris. Disappointment doesn’t capture this feeling, nor does devastation. And it would be easier to process this rejection if my sinking stomach didn’t tell me that every word of his was true. If I were he, without all the tears and months of conversations with my genius, degreed professional, the potential of a successful “us” would scare the bejeezus out of me. Even a year ago I would have ruined this potential. I’ve never run, but I’ve made many a man miserable by making myself emotionally unavailable while figuring out whether or not I wanted to pass my time with him. I understand the urge. Shut the curtains and call it off at the altar before he has the chance to hurt me. Pull away before I ruin the core of yet another human being. Bail because the alternative requires too much risk and an energy reserve that isn’t yet full. Truth be told, he wasn’t there. He wasn’t ready. He chose not to risk it for the me that is here, the me who still stands here with open arms.

I’d told the farm about him. The pigs, the cows, the rooster who crows much too much all too early in the morning. Everyone knew about the beautiful potential I had coming down the pike, because my cup runneth over with excitement and infectious passion at the office doorway and the happy hour. And ultimately I had to hang my head and tell the truth. That he jumped ship. That he opted out. That he clung to the familiarity of fear rather than to me. I was humiliated. By my hope. My lack of caution, my new outfits, by the favorite wines and the embarrasing songs I had chosen to share.

I blamed the tears shed behind a closed door on the touch-and-go recovery of my three-legged cat and cried harder as I’d worried that my lies had jinxed the miniscule progress Bug had made in the days prior. I stubbornly and naively waited for this man's change of heart and just couldn’t admit that I’d fallen, that I’d invested so much and had things collapse on me, mid-smile. That I’d given my heart, only to have someone accept it and embrace it and ultimately decide that it wasn’t the right time for him to keep it, that he wasn’t able to support the healthy, flourishing relationship for which I was ready. For which I am ready.

I know with little reassurance that this decision had absolutely nothing to do with me. His world is a whirlwind of doubts and going through the “shoulds” of motion and the pain of loving both with reservation and on a foundation of unresolved months and years. Unlike every other relationship into which I've entered, this time it wasn't about me, and I knew so before his repeated attempts at comfort began. I knew better than to suspect his whispered words, his returned phone calls, his shared plans and confessions. I don’t give my heart up to just any man who crosses my path with the promises of a future. Know that I chose willingly and with a yes, please to offer him with both hands this fragile heart, even though he gave it back. Know too that my lack of hesitation can do nothing to balance this bottomless hurt and the fact that my emotional walls are already higher than they were only weeks ago.

I’d do it all over again.