If you A: decide to read the post turn to page (this page).
If you B: decide to flee for your lives, turn to page (any page but the other depressing ones)
Whelp,
It's 4:00. Just another one of those nights, seems like.
I just went through every email in my gmail account. That was an impressive feat. when I started, my inbox had over 4,000 messages. It now has 20. There were over 6,000 messages total. There are now 3,339. And I discovered some interesting chronological facts. There were 947 conversations with one particular lady, who I conversed with at some length tonight. Reading through, it is actually depressing how excited we used to be just to email the other person. Chat logs from when I was in class reveal snippets like "I can't wait until you get home!" and brief emails I sent her stated I would have breakfast ready for when she finished her morning class. It has been four years since we started going out. She first contacted me in November of 2008. Five years of knowing her, and tonight I was told we can't even really be friends. That there is no hope of ever being together, no matter what. I did not take the news well.
Surprising, I know, since I haven't eaten since breakfast yesterday, and haven't slept since before that. You'd think these conditions would be ideal for handling bad news, but alas, 'tis not the case. A frantic call to my mother at a silly hour provided a much-needed voice, but it turns out that when one person doesn't want to know another person anymore, there isn't actually much recourse left. We talked anyway, mostly trying to figure out what I was missing that would help me begin to move on. I just want information, which seems to be the one thing that I can't really get at. According to my mother "people are just complicated things" and "you can't understand them." How very inconvenient.
I hate to think of it as a five-year investment. I know I wasn't just "putting in my time" and hoping to be rewarded at the end. It was actually a really good relationship for a lot of it, and despite the problems, I was always sure it would eventually smooth itself out. See, I was fairly confident I had found a girl with the right characteristics that meant, even as she changed, matured, etc. she would still be the kind of person I would want to be around. She was kind, funny, and incredibly eager to try anything that sounded fun. She was at the same time a hard worker, athletic, determined, and intelligent. And I honestly don't think these qualities changed much. What did change was our attitudes toward each other. We talked for a few hours tonight about what it was that made me less appealing to be around, and it was, in general, my complacency. My laziness.
I knew I was being lazy. I knew I wasn't living up to my potential. I wasn't the bright college student with a patent in the works, who played frisbee and handball while lifting and running, biking, and finding time to send tons of flirty emails. I was the guy who woke up at 11:00, read articles about Magic: the Gathering on his phone until brunch at 1:00, and stayed up until he fell asleep. I was the guy who watched season after season of whatever tv show caught his (our) eyes. In a row. I was no model of attractiveness. I focused on activities she didn't share (handball and magic), didn't go to school, and worked minimal hours. And I was content, because I knew deep down it wasn't going to last. And it didn't. I got my applications in to law schools eventually, and I committed to the best one that would give me a scholarship. I wasn't worried about attending, but I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it more than doing "whatever I wanted" with my time.
Well, it turns out that I do enjoy it. I feel more active in the classroom than I ever have in my life, and I haven't even spoken more than a handful of times. I've played more quality handball than I could have otherwise. I even played frisbee for the first time in a long time on Sunday. It's all been amazing, barring the breakup. What really bites about that particular thing, of course, is that now that I'm happy and feeling similar to the guy who wrote those flirty emails, who made time for gmail chats at all hours of the day, who set aside time to cook and who had the pleasure of watching her face genuinely light up at the prospect of some time together. I know that's not who we are, of course, but the contrast between then and now is harsh, especially because I can still picture the girl learning how to throw a frisbee, who biked miles just to see me and talk about music, and who filled chat boxes with <3's at the prospect of a weekend together at Mount Rushmore or in Chicago.
My legs have alternated between numb and tingling for the past few hours.
My stomach hasn't unclenched to show its hunger
So I guess, as small as it can be folded in on itself,
It's full.
And yet my head feels empty, waving over my shoulders
On a neck behaving like the playground spring toys
My too-tall sister and her good friend (My ex-friend?)
Would jump on as I looked around a bit furtively
Wondering if any pram-pushing mom's were judging us
Instead of grabbing my own seahorse, cow, or fish
And joining them for a grinning, brimming minute.
That just sort of happened. I started that sentence thinking that would be a normal paragraph, and then it didn't quite turn out like one. I don't really know where to go from here. I guess I'll talk about my weekend?
My dad came and visited me! That was really great, actually, because I'm really bad about leaving my apartment, and he drove me to go get groceries I couldn't get at the Aldi I walk to. So I have ketchup and soup and stuff now, all without high fructose corn syrup. And Bisquick! I was actually really excited about that. You know something's changed in your life when you're amped up at the idea of adding a bit of liquid and some eggs to some pre-made mix. But there you have it. My "cooking" to date has consisted of heating up various sources of protein (beef, chicken, eggs), boiling noodles, pouring milk over cereal, and eating fruits and vegetables. Bisquick is like the gourmet trial of my kitchen. I'll even have to use the oven...
We also went to Target (a store I never go to because it's more expensive than the bare minimum), where I got some decent pens, another notebook (because I can't count the number of classes I have), some cutting mats so I stop cutting on my counter, and some underwear (compression shorts as well as stock, humdrum stuff). See, it turns out that it's easier to just buy more of whatever item of clothing you have the least of than it is to do laundry. Unless everything happens to run out at the same time, I could go broke using this scheme of avoidance, especially considering the dresser my dad brought with him. So much space, and so little variation in my wardrobe... Interestingly, the underwear (normal Hanes stuff, from the look of it) is much thicker than the stuff I'm used to. This must be a recent development, since I'm sure it wasn't the case when I bought mine only five or six YEARS ago. Man, underwear really stands the test of time.
My dad also brought with him a vacuum cleaner, some food (fresh tomatoes from the garden!), and a bed frame, so no more sleeping on my ground mattress. It reminded me of my freshman year of college for a while there. My freshman year I had my own room because someone left our floor and my roommate moved out. I promptly dragged his bunk bed into the closet, pulled both mattresses off the beds, and just put them on the floor. I wasn't climbing no stinking bed frame if there wasn't going to be anyone else in the room! So I worked sitting on my mattresses at a coffee table, and slept on a mattress on the floor. It was great. This time, I had a box spring anyway, so it wasn't quite a perfect simulation, but again, I am improvising a study arrangement. I have no chair. Instead, I use a pilates exercise ball and for a table I have an upside-down laundry basket! It works great, actually. I have the book I'm reading at the time on my lap and my notes on the basket in front of me. And I'm ready to bounce into action at a moments notice.
Astute readers from last paragraph may be wondering about the vacuum cleaner. Yup, my whole apartment is carpeted. Of course, by "whole apartment" I mean my closet-sized floor space with attached kitchen appliances, but still, it means that any food dropped makes things dirty in a hurry. And there's nothing quite like picking up your noodle from the floor and wondering whether the added fuzz is a good source of daily fiber. So my parents sent me a vacuum, for one-time use, and my dad took it back with him. Or meant to take it back with him. Instead, he dropped me off after dinner, and by the time I noticed it standing there it wasn't worth returning for. Profit!
Let's see, what else happened? I played frisbee! We have an intramural team with three decent players (including me, and defining decent as I wouldn't mind playing with them outside of intramural), and a whole bunch of other people. The roster had like 18 people, which is entirely too many for two 20 minute halves per week. That's right, one game a week, timed halves, no score limit. My captain is Greg Arenson, and he's a stud. He played for NexGen (a touring frisbee team), and was first team all-region his sophomore year of college. He was probably all region a bunch of other years, but that's the only one I came across (I was reading all my emails recently and there was a LOT of frisbee-related chaff. Some of it was links to things like "Michael Brisbois: second team all region" though, and lo and behold, there was Greg's name). He said he was already feeling out of shape, but I think we all were. Oh, and we only had nine people total show up! And one of those was a girl who didn't want to play much, and one was a guy we called as a last-ditch effort when we had five people total because he was the only one whose phone number we had readily available.
We went up 3-0 to start. Greg then mentioned we should take it a bit easier on them. We did so, and the scored. He then said "screw that, let's crush these guys." And his word was our command. We rattled off like five straight points (mostly on just throwing it deep to whoever wanted to run) before my highlight reel point came to pass. I decided it was my turn to sprint deep, and Greg unleashed a monster forehand. This guy can throw! Seventy to eighty yards easily, and I missed a step because I didn't locate the disc right away. So there it was, going further than I thought, and everyone was already yelling at Greg for throwing it too far. So, I "kicked it into high gear" (aka propelled my short little legs even more ridiculously) and made one of the best bids I've ever made. I was actually full-extension, a couple feet off the ground, and it was epic, because as almost anyone can tell you, I rarely do cool things like this. I even touched the disc! No, I didn't catch it. I hit the top of it with my hand and it landed in the back of the endzone as I plowed a furrow with my shoulder. But I made a sweet play on it, and everyone (both teams) seemed quite impressed. I got up, made sure I wasn't bleeding too badly, and got back on D.
"Now we could end the story right there, but shorty didn't quit, there was something in the air. Something about it, he knew he couldn't doubt it, something appealing, he couldn't fight the feeling..." That's right, I kick, PUSHED myself into a layout D on the first throw of the next possession. I was "guarding" the handler who picked up the disc (we had stopped playing good defense a while ago), and when I saw him glance to his right and cock back a forehand, I took some steps off him, spotted his wide open receive (see citation about no defense to speak of), and bid. I got a solid D, and, being me, immediately picked up the disc like you're not supposed to. The first person downfield should never do that. It just gives them free stall counts as your team catches up with you. But Greg saw, and Greg is fast, so Greg ran into the endzone. I, needing to cap things off in style, wind up this monstrous push-pass grip and let it fly over the heads of both of the people involved in the D I just got to Greg who was just drawing level with me at the time. Of course, it hits him in stride ten or fifteen yards in front of me for the score. Highlight of my recent memory.
Thanks for reading! I'm going to end this here (it's 5:20, and I need to do my homework yet before class at 8:00), and I'll pick up with depressing things again next time.
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