It is so easy to think that you can fix things. Sometimes love can make a person naive. No matter how young they are.
It is so easy to find yourself out on the street, shouting at your ex-boyfriend who is pissed at you because you were flirting with the bartender.
You find yourself screaming at him. His name? Maybe just "Wait!" ... as he tries to hail a cab on Sixth Avenue.
It's so easy to think that you must have done something really wrong, and there has to be a way to make it up to him. Even if he IS your ex.
So you stand there, after following him out. Despite how hot that bartender actually was.
And you wind up going home with him. Despite the screaming. Despite knowing in your gut it isn't going to last. It's like you don't even care.
And you're not even drunk. You're sober enough to remember every minute of it. Every moment standing out there watching traffic fly by on that hot summer night. Even all these years later.
So you go home, and you start over. Despite the amicable break-up that ended in combined tears. Despite the sense that this would not be forever, and you shouldn't bother wasting your time. Despite your best guy friend watching you rush from the bar with eyebrows raised, knowing it would be a round trip ticket.
You move forward. Summer turns to fall. You take a trip. If there were ever a window of time that you found yourself going through the motions this was it. Your flight takes off - headed home to NYC. You find yourself in tears. You know it's over. You knew it before it started again.
You find yourselves at work the next day. Waiting. Waiting for 5 o'clock. Closing time. A quick email. Or was it a phone call? Office to office. Wait... I was in a cubicle then. Let's meet at the park. We knew the one.
Did we walk there together? This much I forget, but I know we left separately ...
This time we used fewer words. Shed fewer tears. Good bye. For real. It was over. We were through.
Lesson Learned.
It sucked when I learned that lesson too. Each damn time.
ReplyDeleteOh I love this one! I adore the voice that you took- narrating but with investment.
ReplyDeleteMy heart hurt for you for all of times that we do things even though we -and our best friends- know it's a mistake.
I loved this line -knowing it would be a round trip ticket- poignant.
Oh yes. I know that lesson. Like Galit, I really liked the approach you took w/ the narrative voice.
ReplyDeleteThe only lessons I ever truly learned were learned "the hard way". I now know that all of these lessons taught me to be the woman I was to become.
ReplyDeleteYou may repeat it. I sometimes did. One day I realized I wasn't that girl anymore. You will too.
Excellent post.
stupid boys.
ReplyDeleteOh we all walk the same path somehow don't we? It still hurts...
ReplyDeleteThanks for letting us come with you...I loved that.
Lots of yummy love,
Alex aka Ma What's For Dinner?
www.mawhats4dinner.com
As people have said the use of narrative to tell the story is an interesting and effective approach. To me it suggests a distance....as though once the narrator would have fallen right back in, but now she is at a place of clearer thinking and better ability to keep it all at arm's length. Very effective.
ReplyDeleteLike some of the other commenters, I really like the voice you used for this piece. It implies that you wouldn't make that same mistake again.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a story that so many people (definitely me!) can relate to in some way or another. It's hard to be the person making the mistake and also hard to be the friends watching the mistake being made.
Cool post! Stopping by from TM. I saw you on Twitter, now I know who you are, lol.
ReplyDelete