As I'm packing I'm going through my box of pictures. There are some good things in that box, pictures I will need to scan from my last night at TL and my first year in the Bay. As I went through the box, I came across letters, postcards and pictures from the EB that never was.
This guy was amazingly romantic, the kind of romantical-ness you only wish for. So much so that I tried really hard to fall in love with him, even though he lived in Washington state and I lived in Wash, DC. We met while at an education conference. We joked about being "those" conference people. We talked on the phone almost every night. I'd forgotten what an intense connection we'd made until I read these letters from 7 years ago.
Right before Sept. 11, he paid for me to visit him at WSU using his frequent flyer mileage. I showed up at the airport and he was waiting for me by baggage claim with a very cute, homemade welcome sign. Of course he opened all doors for me, even the car door, closing it after I got in. Of course, I passed the Bronx Tale door test. When he got into the car he pulled out a container of fresh strawberries and blueberries with a side of cream. When we got to his house, there was a candlelit homemade dinner ready. He'd had his roommate set up the candles and leave. The rest of the weekend was full of little romantic gestures, including a trip out to some of the most beautiful hiking trails I've ever seen. It kind of scared me how much he doted on me. Cheesy? Maybe, but really sweet. The sucky thing is that the whole time I was thinking to myself, "AHHH! Why am I not attracted to this guy?! Is the weekend over yet? Get me out of here!" I didn't want to validate the myth that women like assholes.
I knew I needed to tell him I just wasn't into him that way, but I just didn't know how and just let it drag on. I got home to DC and 2 days later, planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
We talked on the phone that night and the stress of the day from working 14 hours on the only campus that stayed open in the DC area just had me snappy. It didn't help when EB that never was, who is JA, said something to the effect of, 'Racial profiling might not be a bad thing in this case,' after I'd shared how frustrated I was about the pending hate crimes and institutionalized bs that would happen to brown folks in the name of national defense. I flipped out. I didn't let him explain. Did he really need to explain anything? How do you explain what he said? I pretty much said to him, 'I can't be with someone who would say something like that.' It was a convenient moment that let me take the high road in the pseudo-break up with the guy that never was my boyfriend.
We didn't talk until this year. We reconnected on facebook. He's no longer working in multicultural education. He does alumni affairs now, schmoozing mostly white folks. He says our 'break up' was as emotionally painful as a 'real' break up. I apologized, but we both agreed that we are where we should be. He found his soul mate. He is now married to a beautiful woman, a very lucky woman that I'm sure is showered everyday with his adoration. I'm so happy he found someone to love him the way he deserves.
As for me... the box of pictures has me thinking about break ups. In the past when I've looked through this box, I've thought about the lessons from the relationships. I've never thought about how I could learn from how I break up. Except for the break up with EB3, I have always been fully in control of the breaking up. I don't speak to any of the EB's anymore. I do, however, still talk to men I've been involved with. We never went through true break ups. The obvious observation here is that I am terrible at ending things, with emotional wreckage everywhere.
And as I 'broke up' with L, my current roommate, telling her I would be moving out, I realized I am really bad at telling people bad news. As I was telling her, my left hand went numb. I started stuttering and shaking. I focused on breathing and getting out short sentences. "I'm sorry. I'm moving out. I made up my mind." It turned out ok! L was very cool. The blood flow came back. I'm still alive. She hasn't done anything crazy. We're still talking, and I'm sure we'll still see each other around. All I needed to do was to breathe through an uncomfortable few weeks.
Relationships aren't just about how they start or how they grow. They don't need to end. They're always changing, just like everything else in life. They take different forms. If a relationship must change even through dramatic 'break ups,' they can be done in positive ways. hmmm... my anxiety over meeting someone cool has a lot to do with how things 'end,' because I've always seen things as ending.
But maybe, relationships don't end. They can just change. I still have bizarro dreams about EB1 and that's been over for 7 years. with no communication for 6. I'm realizing that my connections to people in my past have never ended. They've only taken different forms. The only thing permanent is change. Relationships change too. They either adapt and endure, or they change much more dramatically. It's all about how I recognize and handle change.
