THIS LOVE THING

So I think I am back to that same bitter stage, you know that stage where I laugh cynically at every kissing couple I walk by, sneer at all the “facebook” pictures with happy smiling boy-girl faces with an annoying status that reads, “in a relationship.” Oh I can not believe I am back to that same old song where I hate anything to do with happy people being “in love.” Just thinking about it gives me goose bumps and makes me want to throw up. But there is nothing wrong with being “in-heart” with someone, it’s nice, it’s sweet, it annoys me so much. And the reason why it annoys me is because, like always, I have only managed 2 months. Yes, two months, that is, eight week, a mere eight weeks is how long I have managed to do this “relationship thing.”
I am ashamed and very embarrassed with myself, every time I talk to people asking them how long they have been together, it is always a fabulously gigantic number like 3 years, or eighteen months, or nine years. It is always in terms of years, and how long have I gone in a relationship, eight…weeks. Oh, I weep at my pathetic case.
To be honest I do not know the last time I had a relationship, and by relationship I mean that you date the person and spend time with them for a little over 2 months, less than that and it does not count as a relationship, it is something else and we should come up with a name for it. I am not sad about my break up and this is by far not a weeping letter; by no means no, I am actually a bit relieved that I am not in the “relationship thing” anymore because now I can concentrate on other things; like hating everyone who is in love, and sneering at happy boyfriends and girlfriends.
I will never understand why I seem to be incapable of having a lasting relationship. Maybe it is because I never stay in one country long enough to build something solid, maybe it is because I have not found “the-one”, that is a sad excuse by the way; there is no “the-one” he does not and will never exist, period. Or maybe it is because I am too cynical when it comes to love. I am the most positive person you will ever meet, but when it comes to matters of the heart, I am the first to spit on love and roll my eyes during the romantic scenes of any movie, song or situation. Cynism, is my big problem. But no, maybe I do not have any luck in this “love thing” because even though I love being in a relationship, I find it limiting sometimes and maybe deep down inside I really don’t want to be in a relationship, maybe that is just the way it is.
But that can not be right; I do love being in love, in relationships, blah, blah, blah. I like all of those things and now I can not understand why my ex boyfriend decided to end things. I was going to break up with him anyway but I was not expecting him to break up with me, it was my job to end things, not his. Having said that, I do not see why he would want to break things off with me; I am beautiful, intelligent, too intelligent I think, funny, wonderful, loving, caring, clean, generous, loving, peaceful, loving, I am all of these things and who wouldn’t want all of this in life. There is nothing about me that I would consider less than perfect; I have the body of a goddess, the hips of Venus, the smile of Mona Lisa and the brains of Zeus. Why oh why would anyone not want me. If I was a guy I would fall madly in love with me and buy me the whole world. I would spoil me with all sorts of expensive gifts, take me on vacation and obsess over me, making love to me over and over again. If I was a guy I would adore me. But I am not a guy, and you know what, I still adore me. Even though this makes me sound a little too full of myself, I see nothing wrong with it, I do not care that “the” ex boyfriend doesn’t see the great person that is me, I love me and I have plenty of love to go around.
The sex, I will miss the sex, I will miss the sex more than anything. It was not just sex, it was “making love” and I truly believe that every time we made love, he and I became one whole person and spirit, the sex was admirable, even I didn’t know that I had it in me. Oh the sex, the night-long sex… But there is an advantage here; at least now I will not have to wait anxiously for my periods. At least now I will not have to worry biting my nails nervously, holding that pregnancy test with shaky hands and waiting for that negative to appear; that is the most nerve wrecking moment in any woman’s life. That is, any woman who is not trying for a baby and who sure-as-hell does not want a baby…just yet. For help you God should that little blue or red mark read positive or “pregnant” then you can bet there will be a flood of light hitting your face as you watch your whole life crashing down on you while you sink and think and wonder what you are going to do next. Anyway, I won’t have any of that anxiety, and that is a freedom that I will enjoy fully, unless of course I get seduced by one of only 2 people capable of seducing me in this life; #213 and Coldwell. I should be fine unless one of these two men steps up to me and works his magic, and then I will be in trouble, but I will try hard to resist. I am a master at resistance; it can not be that hard. But for now, yes for now, I am free and I hate all you people who are in happy relationships. However, I wish you all great happiness and you never know; one day, maybe just maybe one day I will be able to do this “relationship-thing” for more than the meager two months that I seem to fall at. Until that day comes, I shall enjoy my simple little life full of greatness and magic even you can’t touch.

THOUGHTS...

THOUGHTS…

Today marks the fifth week of fall semester 2008. I love the fifth week of school: the fifth week is when you realize that the Biology class you were anticipating, now happens to be the most boring class on your schedule, the Literature class seemed like a fascinating idea when your academic advisor was taking you through the motions of what the class would entail, only thing is, she forgot to mention that, interesting as the class was, it also requires way too much reading and research, it feels like you have no time to do anything else; the Finite mathematics class was your first choice, but now it looks like the Greek alphabet spelt backwards and forwards in twists and turns in one big circle, maze and lateral confusion. It is in the fifth week of the new school year that you finally come to realize that you are stuck, doomed, helpless and powerless to do anything about the choices that you were so eager to make in a rush; you can not drop any of the classes that seemed like an amazing idea back in the summer when you were signing up for them. To drop a class will leave a nasty looking “F” on your grade report. This ugly letter will follow you wherever you go, it will sneak up on you unexpectedly in future and pinch you on your backside. You do not want to drop a class and have this burden to carry around for the rest of your life. You can not pick up a class either; any of the other classes, that did not look like fun but now look like the real deal, are now out of your reach. After four weeks of classes, every professor has become pretty comfortable with his little group of students and he would hate to have an outsider come in and ruin the uniformity of his nomenclature. Infact, try you may, to infiltrate his little group, you will pay for it dearly, you will be the one lost sheep dragging the rest of the class behind when they could be moving on with steady tempo. The professor will not forgive you, the students will not forgive you, even the intellectual gods will scorn you forever.

Today marks the fifth week of my Sophomore year 2008. And as I sit in my Biology class, I can hear the buzz of Dr. Watt’s voice, trying diligently to help me understand why I should know what Phylogenetics is and what role it plays in the Systematic Classification of Clades and Cladistics. I want to scream, to drown out the buzz, I want to run out of the class and never look back, I want to pinch myself real hard and ask, “What did I get myself into?” The Biology that I am studying right now is comparable to learning a new language, albeit a very confusing and frustrating language, if ever such exists. Pterophyta, Phylogeny, Protista, Eukarya…all of these words sound so foreign to me that I have to try very hard to concentrate, follow what is going on and stay awake.

I wonder if it is just me that is having this “foreign-language-can’t-comprehend” problem. Is it just me having learning difficulties? I look around me, scan the room and notice the other smart Saint Mary’s ladies with whom I share this great Biological moment every Monday-Wednesday and Friday. It is great to be a Saint Mary’s lady, it is a real privilege. Saint Mary's ladies are a renowned breed of feminine genius; known for their excellence in all areas Scientific and Academic. It is a real pleasure to be a Saint Mary’s girl, makes me feel important, counted, part of a whole. I suspect that the other ladies in my class do not have problems understanding Phenotypes, Bacteriophage and Chromosome Banding Patterns. Why should they have problems understanding any of these things? They come from families whose mothers, grandmothers, sisters and great aunts went to this same college, sat in these same seats and probably helped build, re-build and maintain this school. These ladies come from generation upon generation of Saint Mary’s College Vs Notre Dame University, the two fusing to give birth to genetically modified genius little girls and boys. On the other hand, where I come from is of very little significance in comparison to the brain heads around me: unless of course you consider the fact that I am their live specimen, having been infected, infested and diseased with all of the known bacteria and diseases known to Africa and the world. A major area of our study this year is diseases. I am the class’s best example of how life can survive in deteriorating sanitary conditions, mosquito infested land and high concentrations of bacteria; I am accorded a lot of respect for my survival.

When I decided that I wanted to be a nurse, I did not think for one second that I would have to sit in class everyday hour after hour cramming plant biology whose relation to human biology will forever confuse me. I thought that once I made up my mind to join the medical field, I would get out there and start helping people right away; after all, it is what I love to do. How naïve! Who cares about angiosperms, gametophytes, spores and ephedra; about sympatric speciation, choanflagelletes and kinetoplastids. All of these things I have to learn and cram and re-learn and learn some more. I can not spell or pronounce half of the terms in my textbook, and yet I have to know them and their role in this great compass of a life. I am not a Biologist, I will tell you that right now, I am a writer by birth. It is what I do, it is what I do best, it is what I live for. I write and I write and I write. I think I am good at writing, I hope I am good at writing; it is a God bestowed gift that I claim as my own everyday. But I decided to be a nurse. And it is already the fifth week of my sophomore year, no way out now. So help me God I will try to stick this out to the end. I may hate it, I may loathe it, I may even stamp on it; but this has to be done, if for no other reason but to prove to myself that for once in my life I can finish something that I set out to do, so help me God.

#213

#213

The sink was smeared with the same oily, brown that I had grown so used to seeing. I bent over the sink, as my veins were bulging out of the side of my neck, my heart was racing wildly, and my throat burned. It burned so much but it did not hurt any more, the pain ceases after the first couple of times. I felt my stomach go through the usual heavy contractions, my shoulders jerked high and heavy, and in one violent thrush there was release; the remnants of my dinner came out of my mouth in the same brown, gooey, substance; the remnants of my earlier greed, the remnants of a very dysfunctional disorder, the remnants of a failing healing process. As I quickly rinsed my mouth, brushing my teeth so violently as if hating what I had just done, but loving the fact that I still had some control over life, I told myself for the millionth time that this would be the last time that I would be sending my tooth brush down my throat to pick up the evil that I never wanted getting to my essential systems. I was rinsed, I was cleaned, I was purified and sanctified: food was evil, I was evil, death I welcome thee with an open bosom.

As I tried to figure out what I was going to do for the rest of the night, now that my sin had been purged, my phone went off and I looked to see who was calling me at this most convenient time. Number 213-***-**** flashed at me off the screen like a wanton seductress; my heart stopped. It was the number that, lately, I had grown to obsess over in a dangerous way. I knew instinctively who was calling me, but my phone, even with caller ID, could not figure out who was invading its sweet sleep. But I knew who was calling; because, although I had deleted this same number out of my life, I always recognized those first three numbers and every time I reached for my phone to answer a beep, I wished with all my heart that I would see those beautiful numbers 213-***-****, but I also wished it not to be; those numbers were my very undoing. It had been a while since I had had my phone interrupted this way, in fact, it had been almost a month and the calls never came, the messages ceased, total silence ruled my life, my despair I held intact. And with lingering hope, the wane set in, I waited, tired of waiting, wishing, tired of wishing and praying. I gave up, tried to move on and I was successful. But there it was, #213 was calling me, and my heart nearly burst with shock and surprise. This was not the first time I was going through the motions of #213 with the troubling, obsessive- almost obscene, effect it had on me. This was actually the fourth time that I was experiencing these same emotions, it was like de javu, I had been here before, I had anticipated being here again, and there it was, #213. This was no routine I found pleasurable; it was distressing and emotionally draining, to say the least. #213 would call, I would pick up, we would talk till late into the night, I would invite it into my life; it would leave, I would leave, it would disappear, I would search the ends of the earth, it would ignore me, I would keep searching. And finally as I gave up the search, finally as I pulled myself out of mental rehab, straightened my life, got myself together determined to move on, finally when the wounds inflicted by this “thing” were starting to heal; it would, out of nowhere spring up on me, find me, search me out and over and over again allure me with sweet intensity.

It all started a long time ago when my life was sweet and all was well. I am a sucker for routine and every day I stuck to the same routine of work, job, party and genius. I am a creative genius by birth; everything I touch turns to gold, the words I speak are true perfection and the things I do make me a lot of money. Did I mention that I am a genius by birth? I have always been in control of things, I am my very own Zen master, and I have learnt, with constant studious effort, to move things as if by magic: my hands the wands and my life the wonders I have weaved for myself. My life is a perfect life; no disturbance, no impediments, no upsets, nothing out of order. And with every sweet life, there is the wonderful Life Partner. LP is of course the most good looking and loving person you will ever meet, he makes me happy, I make him happy, life is good, maybe one day we will get married, blah blah blah. I have found everything I want in life; I search not, and I want not, for I am the most content person alive. At lease I was until #213 came up to me one day and asked to change my life for me. And I took him up on his challenge; there is nothing wrong with a few modifications in any set formulae. Who knows, maybe those new changes, those new formulae’s, those new ways of working at things, might prove to be the greatest find of any masters’ divine searches. So I invited #213 in, let him into my house and gave him sole run of my estate. I allowed him to take a look at what I owned, take what he wanted out of house and estate, switch the house furniture around, change the position of my desk lamp, even went so far as to let him repaint my precious walls. I saw no harm in any of this, he was my new best friend, even my pets loved him, and surely I was allowed some freedom in upset of routine. When his visits to my house went from twice a week to five times a week, I took it as a compliment, here was someone else, like everybody else, who found my company worthwhile, and so he should, I have a lot to offer the entire world. It mattered not that I had forgotten to mention this sudden change to Life Partner; I had seen no reason to.

While I was celebrating this new found glory in human internship, #213, quite dramatically, stopped calling by the house. With no reason or explanation, he vanished off the face of the earth. And that is when I crashed for the first time. They say that you never know what you have until it is gone; this statement would not have held more truth if it had been carved on a golden stone. At first I thought that I was just bothered by the fact that I did not know where #213 was, I was worried for his safety not knowing if he was alive or dead (but I knew in my heart of hearts that he was alive). And as my anxiety grew, I thought maybe I missed #213 as you would miss any best friend if ever they went away from you. But my anxiety grew even worse as I realized that I had allowed #213 to change my house around so much that everything that I touched; from the lamp that he had moved, to the walls that he repainted a blooming red, from the cooing of my pets who missed him, to the questioning looks of my next door neighbors who had become accustomed to his pleasant greeting every time he came round. All of this made it a seemingly more empty existence. I could not find #213, I tired calling him, even going so far as to ask his mother if she knew where he was. Life partner of course tried his best to make things better by doing what he does best; making love to me like I am a goddess of queens, making me forget all of the ills of this world. He is not a jealous man, L P, and he knew that I had grown very fond of #213, despite the fact that I was destined to be betrothed to him. Oh how admired his confidence.

Then one day when I went into my favorite butchers, I was told that #213 was actually fine and doing well for himself. He is a popular person around these parts, with a lot of confidants and there was further news about some new exploit he had accomplished, winning the hearts of the whole town. I had been worried to death that #213 was lying in a den, when actually he was “doing very well.” My Being crashed for the second time. I ran home, threw the fine piece of steak just purchased, into the waste bin, and cried for the next four days. Of course I continued to go to work and do all of the things that were expected of me, I put on the best face, people even said I looked lovelier and happier. I am a great actress and this amazing talent serves me well in times like these; I am so good that I can make you believe, by mere appearance, that my life is so great, when really I am dying on the inside and the smell of my death is so pungent to the naked nose, but my looks deceive you better than your nose smells. When I tired of crying and realized that my tear ducts had been overwhelmed and could not serve my purpose anymore, I turned to the one person I always turn to when hell turns loose; I turned to “the Jesus”. Yes, I turned to my personal savior and I prayed. For weeks and days I went down on my knees and I prayed like I had never done before. For those of you that know me, and I mean really know me, I am not very prayerful in my everyday life since most times I choose Grey Goose and Patron for my salvation; I will frequent the nights like an owl on heat, dance and grind, crawl into bed at 9 in the morning and do it all over again, loving every minute to last a life time. But my process had been disrupted, I was torn and confused and I did not know what to do, so I came across a man that told me to unload my burden on him, and so I did. I guess at some point in our lives, we the fortunate ones, come to crossroads where we have to choose between dying in self pity, or raising up like this Jesus man and saying “fank” you very much, if he could do it, I, too, can raise myself from this self made hell.

My healing process was harder than I ever imagined it would be, as I went about the house throwing out every piece of clothe that #213 had touched, redecorating my home and getting an expensive paint job from an expansive home firm. I changed my hair, remodeled my ways, and came very close to joining the new age monks; that is how dire my situation was, I was a pure lost sheep in need of a break from life. LP remained in the center of all of this, taking in the new me and again, making love to me like I was heaven and hell and peace and death, goodness and earthliness all rolled into one in infinite glory. I can never get myself to say an ill thing about my Life Partner, he is nothing but goodness to me and after weeks of rehab, vacation and pleasant touches, I was ready to face the world again. My happy face was no longer a lie, it was the real thing, I was back and I was back for good, ready to kick ass and stay the course.

And then one weekday night as I sat in relaxed pose, listening to the gentle rain meditation disc that had become a constant comfort, part of my healing process, as I was regrouping and becoming my own Zen master once more; the phone went off, I had forgotten to turn it off. And there was that number that I had learned so hard to forget; 213-***-****. My heart skipped, my lips dried up, blood rushed to my face, my fingers froze, then trembled, then froze and went into uncontrollable trembling. I broke out in a sweat as suddenly I watched as all of the things I had learned during rehab; the yoga, the advice, the “love-your-self first” the Zen master program, all of this I watched as it beautifully floated out of my bedroom window, stopping momentarily to unlatch the window, looking back at me with disgust, pleading and waiting for me to call it back, all of this gently moved through to the open air, the open world, the open sea of darkness, and plunged headfast to the ground below, and from up in my room I could hear the shattering of my broken promises to myself flying off in all sorts of marvelous directions. The deed was done, I had picked up the phone and broken my code of sanity, I was back in touch with the forbidden. He wanted to know if I was awake, how I was, what I had been doing and where I was. After stubbornly refusing to forgive him, messages flying hotly from my phone to his, my fingers burning up with all of the typing, I gave in, I accepted his apology. He had slipped, made a mistake, he was sorry, I was a forgiving person now that I had bumped into Jesus, and surely everyonene deserves a second chance. And so #213 got a second chance, and it was as it had been before; he came in, changed things around, re-painted, remodeled, even the pets were glad to have him back, but the neighbors were a little apprehensive; they had seen what a wreck I had been the last time, my efforts to hide my near-demise had not worked, they were not too happy to see him back in my house. But what did they know, they knew nothing about the handsome man from Jerusalem who handed out forgiveness like it was water, they knew nothing, I knew it all. I forgave and forgave and forgave, I loved and I loved and I loved. In fact, I forgave #213 so much so that when he asked to stay over one night, I let him. He was my guest and if he wanted an innocently-sleepover, he could have one.

In the beautiful early morn, he was gone faster than a canon ball. The rest of the story, you know. I crashed, I died, this time I cursed and vented before I sought out the bearded son of a carpenter. He was a little hesitant to grant me audience this time, reason being, I had allowed #213 to stay in my house. But I was a child, I explained, I had feelings and imperfections and fire in my loins, surely he could understand. After much pleading he did understand, after all, it is his job to understand. I prayed, I meditated I healed. I was happy, life was happy. But something was not right; I had stayed away from LP ever since the innocent-sleepover. For some reason; call it shame, call it guilt, (although I really do not believe in either), I had found every reason to avoid Life Partner after this last crash. He knew nothing about the sleepover, harmless little sleep over that it was; he did not have to know about the harmless little sleepover.

Clearly #213 is what modern writers will call “my-obsession,” ”), my mystery and enigma, my Mr. Big (for you “Sex and The City fans”); he is that which I do not understand and long not to understand because to understand it would be to spoil the fantasy, and who here doesn’t love a good fantasy. But at what point do you decide to open your eyes and look at what an ugly little creature this so-called fantasy has turned you into. At what point do you put your feet down and swear to save your soul once and for all, from the debilitating disease of endless, blinding lunacy? Chasing something that is not there only gets you despair, choosing something that you know to be less than real, only makes you a candidate for “the institute.” Sometimes it is much harder to stamp out the lies than it is to let in the pure and true, and sometimes we are just not ready to make these kinds of decisions; and that is why we go on and on, round and round in cycles of self destruction, embracing what we truly know to be fruitless. When we finally tire of chasing the ghosts, there is always someone, something, (as if by magic), some event waiting to show us the truth and guide us out of our very own individual man-made hells. Some of us make it through fine and happy, some of us do not make it, dying along the way, and some of us, after seeing what the truth has to offer, choose to stay in our little hell; the truth is so boring, stale and bland, the lies are sweet and juicy, exciting and mind boggling. You and I have a choice; we always have a choice, but whatever choice you choose, may it serve you well. I made a choice today; to let go of #213, he is the biggest lie I have ever believed in. But then again, I have made this choice four times before, and now we will see whether this choice is the answer, or just another lie like the rest.