"Let a hundred flowers bloom: let a hundred schools of thought contend."
Life has been really busy and really good for a little while now... what with last week's
birthday week extravaganzas with Maria and general contentment on my part regarding life. I suppose it is only appropriate that it is Monday and it is raining a perfect book end to the uber hectic schedule I've been keeping.
Return of the Phone Stand
I'd like to say a little something about my general contented outlook at the moment. I've been biking. This is not the first time that I've been biking in the city. No, I don't have a helmet yet, yes, I'll be getting one --- soon. I hadn't been biking since the summer after sophomore year in college. I had coerced my parents into transporting my bike from home down to my little on-campus apt the fall when I moved back to school but proceded to keep the bike in our apartment (at the foot of my bed) for the remainder of the year. It came to be known as "the phone stand"I'm not sure whether it was Jill or I who dubbed it this, but it was appropriate as my green phone sat on the back of my cute little dusty rose ten speed for the entire year. Even now the moniker has remained. When I told Jill that I had been out riding she said "What!" and dropped her jaw, "You were doing what?! with the phone stand?" Yes, on July 31st I walked my rusty pink bike over to the gas station, paid 25 cents for air and rode back to my apartment. I had thought that I needed new tires for most of the summer and with August approaching and I still hadn't done anything about it I figured I should at least test them out. They work! At least the leaks are slow enough to hold me for the amount of bike rides I fit into one or two days. My first ride consisted of biking from my apartment to Calhoun Square (to do some Saturday morning banking) to Lake of the Isles and back to my apartment. It was glorious. I was nervous about biking amongst cars (still am and rightfully so) but the feeling of wind through my hair and arms and legs and toes did everything to overtake that. The feeling that I was fueling my movement and going rather rapidly at it as well was so freeing. It felt like I was that girl that I had wanted to be when I moved down to the cities. Like as if all the pieces were coming together and this was it.
Even now when I'm writing about it I get this little thrill through me. Part of the exhilaration was the fact that the Monday before I had run into a friend of mine from college at movies and music in the park. I had been sitting there with MRD, Maria, Amanda, and Jill inbetween the music and the movie (which they fell asleep for) watching the people when I noticed him standing there on the edge of the path. I turned around again and waved. I hadn't seen him since we said goodbye two summers earlier. What do you do when you're crazy in love with someone who doesn't feel the same way about you. You anguish, you torment yourself, you pray to the love of all that exists that they leave town. He did. It was good. I was kinda seeing someone else at the time so that made things a little easier, it didn't help the past though, I still wrestled with that in drunken 4a.m. moments at later times. He had called the fall before to invite me to some art show but I had been heading out of town and hadn't been able to make it. I've been told that I left the New Years party a year ago just ten minutes before he showed up (in town on a visit) and also that out of the two party options for Halloween this year he showed up at the one that we didn't quite make it to. I have no idea how that all worked out, at the time I was a little upset about missing him -- or greatful because I was dressed as a really ugly "Designing Woman", but I'm so thankful now. So thankful because I needed the time.
When he came and sat next to me I realized that I had nothing to say to him. Which is a little bizarre for me to keep looking at "I had nothing to say to him" because when I think about it I never really said much to him at all. I mean, we talked had great conversations, but really I was the sponge in our relationship. I wanted to absorb all that he was. I wanted to be part of all of it. I wanted to know all of it. It was where we were when we were. He and all that he found value in were all that mattered to me. But sitting there I had nothing to say to him. I listened as he told me that he had just gotten back from Wisconsin with his significant other and he handed me a berry flavored beer. I noticed how he casually slipped that in there, but really that wasn't it.
For whatever reason I always had seen myself as the martyred woman. He was my Che and I was the woman who couldn't hold a candle to his revolution. I clung to this fantasy, either knowing or refusing to acknowledge the fact that it was only a fantasy. I think I mainly knew but held on nonetheless. Unfortunately it took me two years of not seeing him -- physical, mental and emotional distance to grow on my own. Then realizing as I sat next to him in the park that I had nothing to say to him. It wasn't so much that his podium had suddenly crumbled - that happened without me realizing it within those two years. All of a sudden he was sitting next to me and that was all that it was, we were level and suddenly he wasn't so special anymore. As Jill and I were talking over a glass of box wine later she brought up that she thought talking with him that he hadn't changed at all. He was still that same crazy boy - but I was someone so different than that girl who had fallen for him six years earlier.
After seeing him however I got really upset - but not in the oh-shit-I've-seen-him-again-and-opened-up-all-the-old-wounds but I was just really pissed off. Jill was right by my side ready for damage control. She asked how I was and I said fine, but you could tell that something was off. Maria and MRD who had never met him before and I hadn't even bothered to introduce made bewildered comments of "that was him?" They were obviously not impressed. I went home that night still angry and in a way trying to wallow in what should have been depression. Cursing the fact that I had run into him. The thing is though that seeing him I felt nothing. I wasn't depressed and the next morning when I tried to get all worked up about it upon waking I finally began to realize that I really wasn't angry about seeing him. The issue came from the fact that when I saw him I didn't react, I was getting angry because I didn't feel anything else and didn't know what to do about it. Somehow I had regained all that power that at one time I had voluntarily given to him. It was mine and I was confused about what I should be doing with it.
So on Saturday I went for a bike ride. It was exhilarating not because bike riding fills everyone with such and extrodinary thrill - but because I was beginning to realize that I am the girl that I wanted to be. Six years later I'm that bike riding, book reading, writing, people watching, solo apartment having, optimistic, great set of friends having, freedom fighting, peace loving, girl that I wanted to be. I'm doing it without having some of the things that I thought were necessary at one time --- a boyfriend and a stable job.
I'm living and it's good.
