I think that I can safely say that most of us have at one time looked at our partner and thought “You’re no good for me. Why am here? I should end this!” I have, on more than one occasion and sadly with more than one partner. But this most recent foray into the wonderful world of dating, uncommittal sex and interpersonal communications has left me with a confusing array of emotions and newly developed skills.
The night that I met Mr. Superstar, I knew that I was in trouble, very much the way I knew my life would be different the first time I smoked a cigarette, snorted a line or drank Jack Daniel's. I knew it wasn’t good for me. I knew that it would cause me to lose control of my senses. I knew that I would regret it. And yet I let his smile and smooth voice intoxicate and medicate me over and over, until I was giving in and subjecting myself to every minute of it.
The first 4 days of our romance was a whirlwind, to say the least. We rarely left the bed, we talked about our pasts, presents and plans for our wide open futures. I was lost. His voice was like music, his scent like a potion and his hands left me paralyzed to my own will. I heard my head telling me to stop and yet I let my heart, my fragile aching heart, open itself for the wounding. Why?
I listened to the lyrics of his words and knew that they were just that, lyrics to songs he had been singing for years. His intoxicating perfume was that of a wanderer, the musky smell of the road and hundreds of couches and hitch hiked rides lingering on his barely washed clothes and hair. His hands, the well lotioned hands of a master craftsman, knew the exact broken and cracked spots to touch to send surges of cascading pain through my lonely interior, leaving me weak to the fight and open to his suggestions.
I don’t mean to give the impression that these moves are in anyway prudent calculations on his part to woo or seduce, although I’m sure that they sometimes are, they are just the moves of a man who is determined to not get attached, to remain aloof and keep on keeping on.
Nor is this to encourage feelings of pity or to give the idea that I have in any way been victimized. Not at all! I eagerly took part and gave in to every moment that I spent in this experience, including the moments that I will waste waiting and anticipating until it’s culmination in a mere three days.
On Monday evening at 7:20 Mr. Superstar will board an airplane for a distant land, with no plan or destination. At the least, he will be gone for several months, at the most he will become a fading memory and a sweet story to tell.
I have wondered over the past few days, why I allowed myself to be yanked and swayed for 4 months as if I were on a never ending roller coaster ride. And then I realized that that analogy alone is part of the answer.
As a troubled and lonely teenager I stood in long lines almost every weekend to ride a rickety old wooden roller coaster at Rocky Point Park in my childhood state of Rhode Island. I would board the small metal car alone, refusing to share my seat with siblings or friends, and wait for the thrill of danger to take hold.
With every major turn the tattered, faux leather seat inside the car would jerk just a bit, the car would make a great squeaking sound and the wheels would bang and clunk. My mind would imagine the egg-like structure soaring off the tracks and propelling me to an early, yet heroic death hundreds of feet away.
Perhaps I would land between the Giraffes in the man made Land of Safari. Or pummel head first into the intensity of the Rock and Roll, music blaring, attached cars moving too fast to stop in time to save me. Or maybe I would land in the raging, rocky ocean. Rescuers would have to spend a day or two trying to find my remains but to no avail, ultimately giving up and leaving me to the water.
In my imagination hoards of people would hold vigil, my mother would finally cry, my father would arrive too late mourning the loss of the daughter he never knew and the boy, the one with the crooked smile would never love again.
The excitement of living on the edge, the threat of imminent death and catastrophe and the years of lore attached to your name for being thrown to your death from the careening car of a once safe amusement was plenty of fodder for even an adolescent writer. But I had also become a little addicted to the thrill of the ride.
Imagine the excitement of a roller coaster taking you through a fun house full of your own photographs and furniture. You’re comfortable, you’re in your best clothes and you can occasionally take a rest, but the ride is on a non-stop, never ending loop. All the while the fun house mirrors are reflecting your own images, the real you, the thinner you, the prettier you, the happier you, the you that you wish to be. How do you get off? Why would you?
I had to wait for the controller to move on to another park.
But was it all that bad? Aren't we to learn from the experience of living? Doesn’t each individual we meet have a lesson for us?
I have learned so much about myself in the last few months, both in and out of relationships. I was challenged and encouraged, tested and rewarded. I have, because of this experience, made new plans and set new goals. I have found within me the person that I have been watching from a safe distance in fun-house mirrors.
On Monday Mr. Superstar will leave me and this town, behind. My heart strings will be returned to me, still intact and undamaged. I will wake Tuesday morning a more complete person with a new understanding of my own desire and new desires to nourish. I will have spent this day and the next two wandering the park but keeping a safe distance from the roller coaster enjoying only the carousel. Maybe we’ll stroll the promenade one last time together. It only takes a smile.
He’s just as much a thrill seeker as I am.
I can leave the park now.
The night that I met Mr. Superstar, I knew that I was in trouble, very much the way I knew my life would be different the first time I smoked a cigarette, snorted a line or drank Jack Daniel's. I knew it wasn’t good for me. I knew that it would cause me to lose control of my senses. I knew that I would regret it. And yet I let his smile and smooth voice intoxicate and medicate me over and over, until I was giving in and subjecting myself to every minute of it.
The first 4 days of our romance was a whirlwind, to say the least. We rarely left the bed, we talked about our pasts, presents and plans for our wide open futures. I was lost. His voice was like music, his scent like a potion and his hands left me paralyzed to my own will. I heard my head telling me to stop and yet I let my heart, my fragile aching heart, open itself for the wounding. Why?
I listened to the lyrics of his words and knew that they were just that, lyrics to songs he had been singing for years. His intoxicating perfume was that of a wanderer, the musky smell of the road and hundreds of couches and hitch hiked rides lingering on his barely washed clothes and hair. His hands, the well lotioned hands of a master craftsman, knew the exact broken and cracked spots to touch to send surges of cascading pain through my lonely interior, leaving me weak to the fight and open to his suggestions.
I don’t mean to give the impression that these moves are in anyway prudent calculations on his part to woo or seduce, although I’m sure that they sometimes are, they are just the moves of a man who is determined to not get attached, to remain aloof and keep on keeping on.
Nor is this to encourage feelings of pity or to give the idea that I have in any way been victimized. Not at all! I eagerly took part and gave in to every moment that I spent in this experience, including the moments that I will waste waiting and anticipating until it’s culmination in a mere three days.
On Monday evening at 7:20 Mr. Superstar will board an airplane for a distant land, with no plan or destination. At the least, he will be gone for several months, at the most he will become a fading memory and a sweet story to tell.
I have wondered over the past few days, why I allowed myself to be yanked and swayed for 4 months as if I were on a never ending roller coaster ride. And then I realized that that analogy alone is part of the answer.
As a troubled and lonely teenager I stood in long lines almost every weekend to ride a rickety old wooden roller coaster at Rocky Point Park in my childhood state of Rhode Island. I would board the small metal car alone, refusing to share my seat with siblings or friends, and wait for the thrill of danger to take hold.
With every major turn the tattered, faux leather seat inside the car would jerk just a bit, the car would make a great squeaking sound and the wheels would bang and clunk. My mind would imagine the egg-like structure soaring off the tracks and propelling me to an early, yet heroic death hundreds of feet away.
Perhaps I would land between the Giraffes in the man made Land of Safari. Or pummel head first into the intensity of the Rock and Roll, music blaring, attached cars moving too fast to stop in time to save me. Or maybe I would land in the raging, rocky ocean. Rescuers would have to spend a day or two trying to find my remains but to no avail, ultimately giving up and leaving me to the water.
In my imagination hoards of people would hold vigil, my mother would finally cry, my father would arrive too late mourning the loss of the daughter he never knew and the boy, the one with the crooked smile would never love again.
The excitement of living on the edge, the threat of imminent death and catastrophe and the years of lore attached to your name for being thrown to your death from the careening car of a once safe amusement was plenty of fodder for even an adolescent writer. But I had also become a little addicted to the thrill of the ride.
Imagine the excitement of a roller coaster taking you through a fun house full of your own photographs and furniture. You’re comfortable, you’re in your best clothes and you can occasionally take a rest, but the ride is on a non-stop, never ending loop. All the while the fun house mirrors are reflecting your own images, the real you, the thinner you, the prettier you, the happier you, the you that you wish to be. How do you get off? Why would you?
I had to wait for the controller to move on to another park.
But was it all that bad? Aren't we to learn from the experience of living? Doesn’t each individual we meet have a lesson for us?
I have learned so much about myself in the last few months, both in and out of relationships. I was challenged and encouraged, tested and rewarded. I have, because of this experience, made new plans and set new goals. I have found within me the person that I have been watching from a safe distance in fun-house mirrors.
On Monday Mr. Superstar will leave me and this town, behind. My heart strings will be returned to me, still intact and undamaged. I will wake Tuesday morning a more complete person with a new understanding of my own desire and new desires to nourish. I will have spent this day and the next two wandering the park but keeping a safe distance from the roller coaster enjoying only the carousel. Maybe we’ll stroll the promenade one last time together. It only takes a smile.
He’s just as much a thrill seeker as I am.
I can leave the park now.
