The Truth of the Matter

The Beginning in the End: Quinn

September 2013
"Let Her Go" by Passenger
"Hazards of Love" by The Decemberists

"Why are you video chatting with me? You know I hate that" George demanded crossly, skipping the perfunctory greeting as soon as he picked up my Skype call.

"I just broke up with Truth last week and I would really like to complain for a bit if that's alright with you" I answered testily, figuring he would listen once I explained a little bit.

Neither of us cared to video chat, the monthly phone call and casual text messages were just fine.

"What happened?" he asked concernedly, setting the computer down on his desk and began drinking a steaming mug of liquid.

"She didn't want to commit to a long term thing" I told him, it was a common thread in my life.

Elizabeth was my first serious girlfriend in college, we met sophomore year. We were still together at graduation and when the conversation came up about after college, she abruptly cut it off and broke up with me. Years worth of memories tossed away because a life together didn't seem appealing enough to pursue.

I supposed it was for the best, we were still together simply out of comfort; it probably would have ended eventually and better to do it when nothing in our lives was permanent right out of college. No such thing as staying love for a transient life.

Charlene, Laura, and Jess were all short term relationships that I had between age twenty four and thirty eight. Each relationship lasted around a year, but I supposed that was when my initial charm started to wane and they realized that it was more difficult to love a loner than they had previously thought. But, it wasn't all on them. I push for permanence, and that can be a toss of the dice, a make or break decision.

"Again? What in the hell do you do to these women? A love contract? Adjoining burial plots? You show them your high school hair? I mean come on man" George threw up his hands in exasperation.

"God forbid that I just want to settle down" I said defensively.

My parents had been very much in love, and I was one of the few who had a happy life devoid of any type of emotional trauma and for that I counted myself lucky. I was fine being alone but I always secretly hoped for a life lived jointly with someone who could handle my oddities and love me despite them. I was willing to do that for them too.

"You can't make people want something before they're ready, you can't plan love on a timeline" George reminded me, it was something that he told me fairly often. I'm a planner and logician while he is more intuitive, reading people like the books that he sold.

"Your platitudes are not making me feel better" I lamented shortly, rubbing my forehead in frustration.

"I'm your best friend, sometimes I need to tell you things that are shite. Why couldn't you just let things keep moving? Why did you feel like you had to make some definitive statement?" he questioned curiously, dipping a biscuit into his mug, apparently unaware of the impact of his words.

"Because I didn't want to just wander along in life and have no purpose" I told him, feeling like my logic was airtight.

He rolled his eyes

"So, what? You only learn or appreciate people or love people when they have an end goal? You don't enjoy the journey with them? You only want to take part in it if the end is something that you can choose? You're on a weird sort of power trip man."

"I hate you" I stated plainly, realizing that he was right. I couldn't control people, or how they viewed me, or how our lives would turn out.

"But you know I'm right, I can tell by your shame faced expression. I saw pictures of you two together. You told me she stayed over at your place three nights a week, at least. She made you go ice skating, you guys went antiquing together. She went to your lectures on old sculptures on Saturdays and took notes! Your mom raved about her after you guys came here. Your mom, who still isn't certain she likes me after thirty some odd years of friendship, loved Truth for god sake" he rambled on, ticking off all of the things that I had refused to see as proof of interest and intention to stay even though she couldn't verbally profess it yet.