Mike.

I want to tell you more about the dynamic trio. I want to tell you all the things about all the men, but I want to stay on them for just a little. I think. Why are they so important? There are a couple of reasons. Most notably, I met them during my formative years. I know, I know, right now you are shaking your head. No L. The formative years are like the first eight to ten years of your life. Those are the years that your cognition, emotional self, physical body and social tendencies develop. Yes, but also no. Let’s agree to disagree for a moment. I’m not one to jam my ideas down other people’s throats, but I’d like very much to just share my perspective with you and then you can decide how you feel about it.

I agree wholeheartedly that the first decade of my life was beyond meaningful from a birth and growth perspective. I mean, I wasn’t exactly a growth spurt kind of gal (sub 5 feet over here) but generally speaking, I grew. All around. However, there is something about one’s college years that really brings things home. I don’t think I’m being fair in calling them college years, but I am only doing so because I attended college. Plenty of folks have the same experience I’m about to describe and never went to college. Or they did but later in life. Or they attended a two-year or a professional school. I am equal opportunist in every respect, so I don’t really give a shit one way or the other. If you are a good person and hardworking and honest, that about wraps it for me. College, no college, no worries.

Anyway.

Those years transitioning from teenager to early 20s human are HOLY SHIT. There is something magical that happens. I don’t mean fairy dust and rainbows kind of magical, though certainly that might have been your experience (good for you). I mean something typically shifts within us. I feel a strong desire to stop offering disclaimers or side bar notes so I’m just going to say from this point on, I’m going to describe my experience. I hope you can relate on some level and if you can’t, I hope you get a laugh or maybe a little heart tug. Or maybe, if nothing else, you get a distraction from a meh day.

So much happened to me during this time period that it’s hard to know where to start. I cannot begin to claim that I was transitioning into adulthood because I was the furthest thing from adult in every respect. Truly. I was taking on activities and traits that are symptomatic of adulthood. That is to say that I was living on my own for the first time and figuring out my own meals and doing my own laundry always. The good news is that my parents really did position me to grow up eventually. My sister and I were both taught to be responsible humans and thus, I didn’t get to college as a clueless and wholly dependent human.

And still, I floundered.

It wasn’t the mechanics part that really stumped me. It was the emotional growth component. It was the idea that for the first time in my life, I realized that whatever came next was pretty much up to me. I had always had a pretty secure foundation of support under me and behind me, so I had that warm hug available at all times. I was lucky in that way and trust me, incredibly grateful. I never took that for granted. That said, I knew that while I would still have support, I would also be on my own. The decisions I made would have to be mine and mine alone. I might ask for advice or guidance or an opinion but at the end of the day, the ball was truly in my court. That scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

One might naturally think that a fearful me would tread lightly, right? Baby steps whilst trying to figure out what path I would take? Hell to the no. I was a hot ass mess. I blasted through everything. In my 30s and now at 40, I experience timidity from time to time and I often look back and wonder what the fuck happened to that girl. The one who was in many ways fearless or at least appeared to be. I wasn’t though. That’s the thing. I was not fearless at all. I was terrified. Of everything but mostly, of everyone. How did I combat my fear? By moving 1,000 miles per hour. It was not a conscious decision on my part. Not even close. I didn’t ask myself what would best serve my journey and operate from a place of rational thought. I was impulsive and almost manic. I would do something or say something and then regret it almost instantly. It was most definitely unhealthy and crazy, but I had to do it.

Had to do it? Had to.

My heart and my brain and my body led me to where I was and what I did. That is the truth. I always laugh when I see those ‘what would you tell your younger self?’ videos on social media. You know what gets me the most about that? Do you think your younger self would actually listen to you? Do you think your younger self would get it, like really get it? Do you think that your future self would have the ability to materially move the mountain to change the outcome of your life?

Where I’m concerned the answer would be no across the board. My brain wasn’t broken or short-circuited. It was just young and figuring shit out. I was wholly in the middle of MY formative years and I was nowhere close to the point of understanding what I would eventually want or need.

Why do they say hindsight is 20/20? Well, because when we look back, we see all the things we never saw before with the benefit of context and experience and all the things.

When I met Derrick, someone could have told me all the reasons he would be bad for me. They could have told me that it wasn’t a great idea to have feelings for someone who so clearly wanted someone else. They could have told me that he was lazy and selfish. They could have told me that while I professed to be someone who was cool with casual and quiet, I would NEVER ever be that human. Ever. I might have listened but none of that would have resonated with me. I wasn’t ready.

I had experienced some heartache and some pain in my life for sure, but as we grow, we process things differently. I processed my childhood experiences as a child would, and that was that. I wasn’t forced to grow up prematurely. I did have some major shit to contend with, but I was just a kid thinking and feeling like a kid. That means a lot of different things but the primary sentiment is that whatever occurred was on me. I had no one to blame but myself (I know, I know).

I had a boyfriend in high school, at the end. I took him to college with me in the less literal sense. Now that I think this through, we might need to start with him, with Mike. I was a child when I dated Mike. I didn’t think so but now, I know so.  There is so much I could share about Mike.

I remember being in his bedroom in Staten Island. Over two decades have passed and I can still vividly picture the pocket door near the foot of the bed, with its rusted hinges and well-worn wooden slats. I can envision piles of recently washed and more recently worn sweatshirts.

Scientific and pre-med textbooks littered the room. All new. Who the fuck gets new textbooks? He did. Just because he could and so, why not? That was how everything was with him really. He could do things and so, he did them. There was little thought to impact or appropriateness. There was no thought to optics or kindness. He could, and so, he did.

There were photographs everywhere. Thumbtack hole riddled pictures. Smiling faces on skis, with cocktails, in swimming pools. Awards too. Academic and athletic. How well rounded he was and how impressive. A catch, as they say.  He always knew that he was going to be a doctor. He was handsome and came from a good family. Good family? Great family. Well, from the outside anyway. The inside of that perfect, shiny apple was rotten. A deep brown softness, soiled with decay and neglect.

His mother wanted him to marry a nice Russian Jewess. She would have loved for him to bring home a fellow doctor or perhaps an aspirant mother and house wife. There was room for either, but no room for me. None at all. I painted and sculpted. I believe in God but loath the constructs imposed by traditional religion. I made that known. I joyously embrace tradition but recoil in the face of oppression, rejection, and exclusion. I made that known too. At the time I wanted babies, or so I thought, or maybe not. My indecisiveness and willing to share gave her heartburn.

I was so young, in age and character. Also, wise beyond my years. I knew that the world is vast and there existed more than cute Russian almost doctors with micro-managing maternal figures.

What about his father, you ask? Maybe you don’t. I’ll share just in case. His father had a steely veneer and Tom Selleck mustache. His father was a mountain of imposing silence and judgment. He didn’t judge me or maybe he did. I wasn’t ever singled out. His disappointment was sort of just everywhere, projected onto everyone. He had expectations that are expectant but not conveyed. Only heavy sighs and headshakes. I used to fantasize that he judged his wife the most of all but never expressed those feelings. This was self-serving, of course, as is the case with most fantasies.

He had a brother too who was always close and yet, so far. My secret? I loved him best. He was soft where Mike was hard. He was sloppy where Mike was refined. He was effusive where Mike was removed. Mike had recused himself from socialization he considered wasteful. He had so many friends but how, I don’t know. I often thought that was directly a result of his blood tie to Jay. People tended to gravitate towards the two of them like magnets, but when it came to Mike in real time, he was just part of the package. They were so dissimilar and yet, there seemed to be no Jay without Mike and no Mike without Jay. They were like those puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly but the image imprinted on them is completely incongruous. They must belong elsewhere and yet, you justify because, well, they fit.

I remember laying in the dark and contemplating the events of the day.

I had told him I couldn’t ski. I used to but not anymore. No skills and no desire. Something in his arrogance and belligerence had inspired me to dig my heels in further. Deeper. I would not give in. I would not try. I had no desire to. Leave me behind. I would relax and read my book. I would be happy. He would be free.

That didn’t serve him though. There would be no one there to witness his spectacle. There would be no one there to hold him close, warm lips against cool cheeks, murmuring words of admiration. You are so impressive. You are so talented. You are so strong. He would have to scan the crowd for a fan. There would be no one at his ready disposal. In a moment of desperation, I promised to watch by the window. I would leave my novel behind. A barely acceptable offering, but it worked.

Then, Jay grew tired of snowboarding early. He collapsed into the cranberry-colored art deco loveseat just beside me and impatiently stripped off layers. Cheeks rosy from the cold and eyes glazed, no doubt from the early morning wake-up. He smiled as he slid his stockinged feet onto the chafed wooden table in front of us and asked if I needed anything. I wordlessly declined by shaking my head and holding up the child-sized Styrofoam cup containing watery and entirely underwhelming hot chocolate.   

I pretended to go back to reading but mostly stared at the same line, conscious of his presence. That was the thing about Jay. He was entirely unassuming. He wouldn’t chat my ear off. No questions about my book or the day would be forthcoming. It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested. I didn’t ever think so. He was just someone who respected silence. He was able to just be in a way that I admired and respected. It was more than that, I craved it. Mike dissected everything. No detail left behind. At one point I had found that trait incredible and then it was intimidating and tyrannical.

We sat like that, in silence. That’s how Mike found us. He didn’t say anything. Nothing at all. His nostrils flared and upper lip quivered. I was battered by his soundless brooding for the rest of the day. I did what I did best back then. What I do best now. I talked. A lot. Too much. I said all the things. I filled the silence with my anxiety and desire to be back in his good graces. At one point, I apologized. He looked at me, eyes glittering with barely suppressed disgust. “Whatever for, my love?” I knew then. I knew I’d be punished. More silence. No words.

That night in his room I could smell his anger and overpriced beer. I choked on my silence and my tears and my weakness.

Eventually, I was alone. His mother didn’t like us sleeping together under her roof. It wasn’t proper. It would have been if I had been someone else, but it wasn’t proper because it was me. I didn’t cry after he left.

He came to my room in the morning. Back to my room. His eyes were all at once apologetic and bold. He was testing me. I was already dressed and ready to leave. I had refused to shower. I smelled like rage and embarrassment. I picked up an old glass juice bottle by the windowsill and gave it a little shake as I slipped the strap of my duffle onto my shoulder.

“I’ve been letting that settle for years. Years,” he had said, incredulous.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.”

I was also sorry. For all the wrong reasons. And as you’ve likely guessed, it took me many more tries and bumps and falls and fails to figure that out.

Let’s leave this for now. I think we’ve had enough of Mike for now. I’ve had enough of him for a lifetime. Yes?

Yes.

Talk tomorrow.

xo

L.