(Um...what happened to Blogger? Google bought it out? Because I can't navigate anything anymore.)
Sometimes, I marvel at life's ability to sort itself into chapters. Or perhaps it is my ability to draw conclusions as my writing skills improve, but lately it feels as though a chapter has closed in my life. I'll start from the beginning.
I met Ari (name changed) the Wednesday of my first week here. She's an intern for the NMNH, attends Hamilton College, and originates from Seattle. It was customary to attend your first Wednesday coffee break with the mammals department so that introductions could be made, so I showed up shyly behind Eric, wondering what the heck I was going to talk about. I stood around awkwardly for the first bit, enjoying my coffee and ducking my head when I was introduced to the room at large. As people trickled out, I sidled over to Ari and Lea, two girls my age who worked together in the Rodent Range, and attempted conversation. When I noticed the "Seattle Pride" rainbow wristband Ari wore, I'd figured.
She's tall and wears glasses, has two large front teeth that gives her a dorky face, but the limbs and grace of a dancer. In fact, she would have been a professional dancer if she thought she could have made it. Instead, she's a biologist taking philosophy and film classes at her liberal arts college, a traveler with an 8-month study-abroad program booked for the coming school year, and has worked as a computer consultant and RA at school. We traded phone numbers after coffee and I was half-pressured into seeing The Room at a local indie theater that Friday. It's one of those interactive cult feature, like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where people bring spoons to throw at the screen and inside jokes abound. I was horrified by the movie when I first saw it at Stanford's admit weekend. I didn't think anything could have been that bad, and there I was, watching it again because a charming girl smiled and asked. Her friends were there, too, but we walked next to each other and were too shy to touch. I borrowed clothes to dress well, a tank top and a button down shirt, which I soon removed and tucked into my pants behind my back, very loose and very gay. She wore a rainbow dress and I was smitten. Somewhere near the end of the movie she turned to me in the half-lit theaters and smiled, but in that moment she looked so much like AO that I was flabbergasted, and looked away.
That Sunday night I wanted time with her again, and she was willing to wash up after a weekend tubing on the river and watch the last few episodes of Glee with me in her dorm room. It felt so good to be so close, just to ourselves, sharing Glee and talking about each other. Most of the information above comes from this night. We had finished the season's finale and it was getting late when conversations lulled.
"Can I kiss you now?" she had asked.
"No," but I smiled. "Not yet. But do you want to talk about what happens when the summer's over?"
And we did. And we concluded that not much could come of it. We lived in different states and had two more years of school on opposite coasts. She was studying abroad for a year in countries and areas with limited internet connection. Both of us intend to continue traveling and researching when we've graduated, she traveling most of all. It wasn't going to last beyond the summer.
"But, I was thinking, we could just have a really fun summer," I had said, and we agreed. She insisted that I texted her once I had walked and arrived home safely.
There's a lot to be learned when we see people with their group of friends. Three from different states came to visit her one weekend, all she had met at college. They're a group with diverse interests and a love for talk, films and philosophical discussions. It was one of those moments when a group of wonderful people got together and the universe showed its approval. A freak storm broke out and we pressed our noses against the glass windows, staring at summer rain. They made mac and cheese from scratch, and both Ari and I raised our hands promptly at the suggestion of Amelie. A hip ice cream parlor presented itself and a fountain curved miraculously as we walked by enjoying our treats. The sunsets lit the world with purples and pinks, the street lights burned, and a golden angel stretched her wings. I took amazing pictures from a borrowed camera. The Washington and Jefferson memorials made imposing backdrops for conversations and photographs. Heck, even the Fourth of July fireworks and Matthew Morrison were entertainers. But things were starting to feel wrong, the silences too long and too awkward. Later I would learn that she had a crush on one of her visiting friends, and the philosophical conversations she shared with him that weekend caused some feelings she had to re-surface. She's bisexual, after all, but then again so was AO. It made her feel distant from me as she gravitated towards an old flame which burned brighter than our's.
We had a more official date on a weekday. I picked her up from her dorm after work and we walked to an Indian take-out, eating in the nearby park. We met an enthusiastic female terrier who promptly flattened herself on her back for our petting and enjoyment. I grinned like a fool, and sitting there on that bench, in a wonderfully bustling city, foraying into Indian cuisine and challenging my spicy palate, we talked about our dreams for the future. She wanted to travel for 10-15 years, see the world, then settle down and have a kid while fostering many, many more (she had a different childhood herself, living with her divorced father and brothers, raised by her friends' families). She was a vagabond, like me, both unfailingly aware of what we owe to the love of friends who took our struggling lives and made it a million times more pleasant. She wanted goats in a backyard, with cats and dogs and a big family. I confessed I wasn't sure about settling at all and living with a big family, but silently I thought, maybe with her, that wouldn't be so bad. I'd thought about it.
Then came the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 premiere. I texted to learn that she was already in line with friends and rushed out the door and onto the metro, leaving my Stanford friends behind to catch up because it had been a few weeks since, and I badly wanted to spend time with her again. I found the line in the theater and looked wildly around for her, but couldn't find her. I texted, and she finally called out, sitting not five feet away from me. She hadn't bothered to meet me halfway and I worried what she thought of me, unable to spot her within a crowd. I plopped myself in front of her, but conversation stuck until she suggested I actually go get my tickets. When I came back, the line had built and she hadn't saved me a spot. I stood ten feet away and texted, hoping to catch her attention, but she sat down and played a game with her intern friends. That had hurt, beyond anything.
My friends came with such enthusiasm for the last movie in an epic we had traveled since our youths that I was distracted for the rest of the night. Squeezing two people on one seat next to our friend in the disabled section, yelling and applauding at the screen and passing the popcorn and candy will be a memory to keep. I had introduced them to Ari, but she smiled and said very little, and for that night I gave up. We texted goodnight's that night with enthusiasm, but I couldn't forget how she'd made me feel.
It was neglect and unappreciative, feelings not returned. But I couldn't understand why. I spent the next few weeks listlessly working, mostly attentive but with a continual sense of loss. My boss had situated me in the auxiliary museum while he worked at the main museum where she was, so I never ran into her anymore. Sporadically I would text to ask for dinners and weekends, but continually she would turn me down until the requests diminished. I didn't have the heart to keep trying, increasingly feeling as though I was encroaching on her space. When missing her grew too much alongside the confusion, and after pints of ice cream with my DC friends who had been there to witness the entire thing, I finally put my foot down and insisted she stay late after work to meet me when I returned on the shuttle. On that same day, she needed me to bring back some samples they had desperately needed. We sat across each other in the conference room and I asked. Why the cold shoulder? Why did she suddenly become disinterested?
Because I didn't talk enough. Because the conversations didn't flow, and she was a talker.
I swallowed and nodded, forgiving. We exchanged pleasantries and she left to keep working, so that I could keep working, but I could barely think. It took until that weekend for the anger to flow. How dare she neglect to tell me sooner? How dare she belittle my feelings and bring on such insecurities? It was as if she didn't care, or that I had cared too much. But then, why did I let myself feel something for someone who didn't care as much, as AO had? Why did I make that mistake again? AO was the worst case, but LG was similar, though she was kind enough to tell me to stop before it got too bad, and while I may have begrudged her then, I'm thankful now. Every relationships teaches us something, and we take away from each lesson knowledge that accumulates to help us with the next one. You can't deny the spark that happens with some people you meet, but your ability for relationships grow. It doesn't feel like a step backwards with AB, because this time I understand it wasn't my fault, that the disinterest, the lack of effort, and the carelessness was on her and the pain it caused was on me.
I won't forgive her for now she treated me, but I do forgive myself for letting her treat me that way. For the past year I've been learning Faith and Fortitude within myself, to understand and accept myself, to love myself as someone deserving of love and care. I'm learning to reach out, to build a fragile bridge between the island of Self and the rest of the world. I'm learning that sometimes people hurt me because they're careless, but I have the choice to understand that, and to not let them have access if they didn't care. I'm learning that I have a voice and important things to say, but it will come as I see fit and those who stay to listen are worthy of keeping. I'm learning to think less of people than before, while still thinking most of their potential, and I hope to remain pleasantly surprised as people remain unexpected.
That's a lot to put in one post, but I didn't want to spend more time than was necessary on this story. It is a good story, isn't it? There was a beginning, a middle, and an end. I'm sure I'll continue unpacking it in other writings, but for at least one post I wanted to present all the facts that I could keep as a memory. There are golden moments in this story to reflect back upon and smile, but I must never forget the conflicts as well. It's a relief to put everything down in writing, and to have spent a considerable amount of time analyzing it with friends, and I consider this chapter finished.
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