Splendid Ignorance

1986

In the months that followed our breakup, I floundered. Iggy and Wanda had tried to keep me pulled up and occupied over Christmas break, and it worked for the most part, but when school started again in 1986 I felt myself pulling away from their support. It was the last half of my senior year of high school and I seemed determined to enjoy none of it.

When I finally realized what was happening it seemed too late to change the direction I was heading. I just didn't care anymore. By the end of January I had lost connection with Elaine, Charlotte, and Danielle. I guess I had not really been close with them before but had more of a proximity friendship because of Iggy and Wanda. However, by the end of February, even Wanda and Iggy were worn out of trying to reach me. Like the musings at the end of "The Wall". It was not easy for them to continue to bang against my wall. They were there, but after a time I had lost sight of them. I had built a wall up around myself. Soon, they were out of my sphere of society too. I was how I felt, alone.

I became reclusive and my sole thought was how to repent enough to win Darcey's affection back, or at least her acceptance of me. I'm certain my obsession and peculiarities at the time didn't warm her up to the idea of any reconciliation.

One night in February, shortly after I had sent her a poem for Valentine's Day, I braved a phone call to her. Her mother answered. She was a strong woman and did not beat around the bush.

"She doesn't want to talk with you. I tell you though, knowing Darcey, she just needs time to cool down." Darcey's Mom said.

"But I just needed to say a few words to her." I attempted.

"She needs time. You haven't given her that time yet." Her mother clarified.

"I know, but I feel so bad about what I did. I'm trying to show her that."

"That was nearly three months ago. You have to forgive yourself. Believe me, Darcey is not mad at you for that. I mean, she was very upset and hurt. She was mad, but she has calmed down about that night. However, you haven't given her time to collect her thoughts and fully heal because you keep butting in and rubbing the wound raw." That struck a chord with me. It was like the blinds were raised and some light came in.

"I never thought about that." I admitted.

"That poem you sent her was so special, but she couldn't enjoy it and be moved by it. If you would have given her some space over the last few months I know it would have been received as you had intended it to be by her."

I was silent. My heart sank. I bit my bottom lip. My face began to get warm as I felt my eyes swell with tears. Large, limitless tears that outgrew their bounds and dropped down onto my shirt. I continued to listen.

"She even said to me when she showed it to me how beautiful it was, but it meant nothing to her. She couldn't accept it because you couldn't respect her enough to give her the space and time she had asked for."

Darcey had asked for that. Time. It was the one conversation of substance that we had following the night at the bowling alley. It was a week after that night. A week filled with my failed attempts to show a display of my repentance; words, letters, flowers. Finally after school one day she was waiting by my car. My heart leapt for joy when I saw her standing there. However, she did not hesitate to set the record straight regarding the reason for her presence.

"Please, leave me alone." Darcey said.

"What? Please forgive me." I offered.

"How can I when you still are not respecting me." She said.

"How am I not respecting you?" I was confused. How could she not see my heart? "I'm truly sorry for teasing you, for joking. I was totally wrong. But I don't know how else to make you see that?"

"I get it. I see that you're sorry for that night, but now I'd like some space and some time to sort things out." She said.

"Sort it out? Sure, that's fine Darcey." I said. "How long?"

"I don't know how long? I was really hurt and I need some time to let things just settle down. I need to clear my mind so I can think straight." She said.

"I understand." I didn't. "Take all the time you need. Just tell me when to call you."

"See, right there!" She was angry. My heart froze. "You say take all the time you need, but you demand a timeline. That is the problem!"

"No, I meant when you're ready, tell me. I don't mean tell me right now, when." I was feeling that sense of drowning. A steady rise of panic. The look on her face showed that she was beyond consolation.

"It might be a long time." She said flatly and turned to begin to walk away. I stood there dumbfounded. She stopped, turned and made her parting comment. A final twist. "Don't call me, don't talk to me, don't write me letters or leave any notes on my locker. Don't send me candy, flowers, or poems. I don't want them."

"That's fine, Darcey. I understand." I lied. "Just tell me what you need?" Those were the wrong words. The wrong question. If I could go back in time, shake myself really hard, and just clear those words out of my mouth like an Etch-a-Sketch before I spoke them. She had been clearly telling me what she wanted and what she needed. I had been hearing, but I had not understood her. I hadn't listened. It was a hard lesson to learn, and I didn't learn it for decades to come, and even then I was only a novice. It was a course of study that I would probably forever be enrolled in and yet never receive full credit.

Darcey clarified. "I need time and space!" And then she left.

After the conversation with Darcey's mom, I sealed my wall up. Wanda and Iggy were cordial with me at school, but I had shut down their attempts to help enough that they stopped trying. I also severed all my contact with Darcey. But by then, I had pulled back from everyone and everything else, including myself. As a consequence, I ended up giving Darcey her time and space that she had requested months before. I had anticipated a call or note from her a week after that talk with her mom. That week turned into weeks. Those weeks turned into months.

It was during this time that I came across a thin tan book in the library. It may have actually had an orange cover at one time, but time and use had slowly faded it so that it looked more tan than orange. On impulse I checked it out and began reading through it. It was a book of poems by an old Chinese poet named Li Po. One of the poems resonated with me on a deep level and summed up where I was at in my heart and mind. I read it over and over to myself:

"I am a peach tree blossoming in a deep pit.

Who is there I may turn to and smile?

You are the moon up in the far sky;

Passing, you looked down on me an hour; then went

on forever."

I sat at home or walked in the park alone over Spring Break. I skipped prom. And while I did go to graduation, I just went through the motions for my family. They actually did not know anything was wrong. I kept my private life severely private.

Even after graduation, I expected the next week to bring a reunion. An absolution of my sins. A resurrection of relationship. And as the summer months melted away I became even number and sealed off than I was before until I was completely empty.

As fall began, I began to smoke and drink. It didn't help. I got a job at a fast food place and enrolled in the local university with an undeclared major. My life then proceeded to settle into a steady rut.