I have this strange habit… whenever there has been potential for a new, blossoming relationship, and I realize that I'm only half-in... The guy isn't perfect and I'm now frustrated with humanity. I phone my ex-boyfriend. Not for advice, or to be reassured that my alluring and quality characteristics will stop any guy dead in his tracks… I’d slip into the city for a long weekend, comforted by his familiarity. Convincing me, “No Auna, you’re not insane.” Joking afterward, “but you should come with a cautionary warning.” And then I would laugh, now confident and strong, feeling acceptance by someone who already knows how I look naked, how I kiss and how I spoon. And after a plentiful night of rehydration I would return to foreign territory of the dating world, where I"m inherently awkward and it takes months to comfortable letting go - feeling nourished… knowing if another guy screwed me over, instead of moving forward… I could always go back.
Why bother making memories with someone you know down the road isn’t going to be around to remember those memories with?
For the experience? Enjoy the succulent temporal, live for the moment that now, has already passed. Those one-in-a-life experiences that razzle and dazzle your innards, jam-packing your suitcases, hitch-hiking across Europe only to catch the 2am titty show in Beijing.
I'm a bit tipsy in California and it's amazing what the brain can rummage up when all you have is a friend, lap top, suitcase and a bottle of vino to amuse you.....
Do it for the stories you can tell. But the bigger question is: Who the hell wants to listen?
The rambunctious and insane acts we do for the sophomoric single-syllable mind-game. Possibly born out of boredom, but truly spurred from too many bland starbucks meetings where ogling at your watch doesn’t seem to get the point across THAT YOU DON’T GIVE A DAMN.
And when the blind dates and the forgotten business cards grow old it’s so easy to resort to our exes. Do we think that another “roll in de hay” will cement the issues that once kept church bells from ringing, or rekindle the bond incapable of being unearthed at the dinner table, only found once tangled in the bed sheets? (It’s amazing how much easier it is to find conversation while making out, rather than rehashing politics over steak tar-tar). I honestly wish the enchanting weekends could have rekindled the happiness I see in our pictures, but every time I waved goodbye… I felt a little bit sadder that we’d not made it as an “us”. But rather two individuals just trying to get by.
And so while there are only a few sips left of my red wine … and after I shall retire for the evening. Tonight is a first when I haven’t a conclusion, simply a question. Are we afraid? Or tired? It’s so easy to trust what we know “almost worked” rather than perspire and selflessly try at the new relationship, which still has a small chance to actually work out.
There is something so cozy about nostalgia… it grows with us and absorbs the situations and mistakes that no longer define. The memories you no longer associate yourself with, but without them you don’t know how you made it out alive.
If I could have one more night with the guy who swallowed my heart several years ago, and only gave some of it back… I might. And while he is the closest to perfect I have yet to encounter, there is a reason we didn’t make it and a reason why I’d leave our bittersweet dialogue left on the phone.
I have to believe there is the right one out there... a guy who will want the rest.
Five Fashion Faux-Pas
15 years ago
