A year of living alone in my very own apartment zoomed by in a series of stumbling out of taxi cabs at 2am, then rushing out the door for work at 8am with wet hair, shirt on inside-out and toothpaste at my lip cracks . No time to check the mirror. Make-up on the train amidst the heaving bodies of subway rush hour.
Gradually, no, it wasn't gradual....Suddenly, my friends began to pair off: I had nowhere to go on a Friday and Saturday night while they were suctioned at the face to their apparently magnetizing men. One night, feeling lonely and craving comfort, I called that ex, Luciano. The last time I had seen him was when he had helped me moved in a year ago.
The first time we broke up, I had left his ass after some suspicious activity involving his string of 'Just a friend's who happened to be girls. I swallowed any jealousy for a long time in order to retain 'trusting' and 'independent' on my lover resume (I certainly didn't have 'cooking' or 'cleaning' or 'domestic bliss' on there.) I accepted some of these girl-hyphen-friends. I tolerated others. I despised one, but that's a story for another time. But one day, after those three years of being together, he dealt me an extra hefty 'last straw' that I couldn't logically or emotionally accept and my camel bolted to avoid severed humps.
I still loved Luciano when we broke up, but my resentment clouded any chance of reunion. When he convinced me to meet him for lunch so that he could repent before judge and jury (i.e. me), I found that it hurt too much just to be with him. The pain left me breathless every time my thoughts flashed to the past. He said loved me and missed me, but accepted my decision. Then I just shoved him out my mind and moved on - a little too easily, maybe. I didn't look back. I had my two best friends and we were embarking on one of the most fun-filled, alcohol-fueled, dancing, partying episodes of our lives. That was the first time we broke up.
So on this lonely night, after 3 years apart, 6 years since we met, a year since I last saw him on move-in day, my tippy-tappy fingers dialed Luciano before I could stop them and we hung out.
Unexpectedly, suddenly, like a cat in a cowboy hat straddling a stick of fireworks, my love for him came bounding back, zooming off walls, mewing"Yee haw!" It was actually beautiful: a soul-singing mixture of rekindled and newly-burning adoration. The electrifying and unexpected blending with the fondly remembered. The magic had never left, the anger forgotten in the dim shapes of history.
When we realized that we were both ready for much more than a lustful weekend, I laid out what my foundations of mutual respect in a relationship, but maybe he would have agreed to being awoken every morning to a poker up the ass at that point. His best friend told him that I was using him. I don't think anyone believed this could be real love after three years apart. Even I wondered, could this be my rebound from single life? But it was as if my love for him had been buried beneath a hundred hurts, then smothered with sprinkles of fun times with friends. Now, the fuse of that entombed lurrve rocket had been sparked, and it blew away all that debris. A dormant volcano's formidable release.
He moved into my Brooklyn apartment within weeks, accepting its One Weird Thing as if it were his own. I knew instinctively I had found the Grandpa to my Grandma. Getting old didn't seem scary, it sounded fun. We would drink whiskies on the rocks like it was iced tea, in matching rocking chairs with cup holders. Laughin' and rockin' and rockin' and laughin'. Luciano and I were living the three Ls: we Loved with passion; we Laughed at any opportunity, and we were passionate about Learning. Plus he spray painted my uterus til I screamed "graffiti" for all the neighbors to hear.
Feb 27
It's the second night that I haven't seen Sid. I guess I miss him. But more than that, I feel let down. I thought we had a living experiment going on. The trailblazing case of man and insect being master and pet. I wonder if he thinks I'm the pet. But I doubt it – the hierarchy is clear. I feed him, I house him. The only way he could feed me is if there was an apocalypse and I was so starving, I'd eat him for a meager protein boost. Just kidding, Sid. That's not the way either of us would want this relationship to turn out.
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