On Marriage : The Beginning Part 4

On Marriage : The Beginning Part 4

11/4/14 2:42pm

At lulu. Alexis just returned my pants. Now I have $1400 on my gift card. Every year they gave me a $2500 to make sure whenever I was teaching or speaking I was wearing their gear. 

Everyone there was happy to see me. They always were. Telling me how awesome I was. Part of their hype culture for their ambassadors. It worked. Just a little louder please, Alexis is in the back. 

I waited for her to finish so we could drive up to Carlsbad for the yoga class she was teaching to foster kids at the Y. 

Something had certainly shifted between us. The little bubble of magic that had been surrounding us was just air now, like all the other air around all the other people. Our conversation followed more of a script. I didn’t look so hard for moments to make her laugh. 

She taught with a lot of heart, but she was wild. Her energy felt like displaced pain of her own. Or maybe she just wasn’t grounded. I didn’t see the person I was hoping for, only a much younger version of someone who was going to be great in her own time. I took this as fuel to regain control over my emotions and keep a steady hand with her. She wanted to teach kids and I could help her do it. It wasn’t time for any other kind of relationship between us even though I would’ve dropped everything and gone into one anyway. 

7:42PM

Power moves. I’m the goddamn boss.

Alexis dropped me off and instead of trying to hang out more I said, “Thanks for teaching, you were amazing. See you Saturday,” and closed the door.

Insert smiley face.

Dwell on that one.

That’s a mofo’n powerbomb! 

Then I had to call Jenny to cry about the whole thing. 

I woke up the next morning, in the foreign apartment I was occupying, overcome with the same mental paralysis as every other day. I had to get up and start moving. If I let the thoughts gain traction I would never move. A lifetime spent under the covers hiding from all the things that would kill me. 

The day was filled with more of the same – writing, meetings, meditating, looking for money in hidden accounts I didn’t know about, thinking about Alexis, trying not to think about her, then calling my friends. It was hard to keep going to Greg and Mijon for advice, they were exhausted by me. They didn’t care about the nuances of every interaction, just the big picture. Was I behaving well? Was I being a good person? 

Ashley and Ang were tireless though. I got to Ashley’s around 5PM. She was depressed because she and Chris were fighting again. It made me sad because I liked them together. The first time I met Chris I thought he was an asshole. He didn’t care much about me or what I thought, he was walking outside without shoes on, and he spoke to Ashley with such a directness she seemed naked in front of him. Then I learned that’s just Chris. Chris who lived in third world countries volunteering for Peace Corps. Chris who made hundreds of thousands in the stock market one year. Chris who didn’t think cutting his hair or wearing shoes were important things for a person to ponder. And Chris who never for a second changed his behavior depending on who he was around. That’s the thing about being an asshole, if you do it with consistency people will learn to like you anyway. 

 Ashley and I went and got kombuchas and walked to the ocean. Ang showed up an hour later and met us on the pier. We watched the surfers from behind the waves, their bodies moving quickly along these massive forms of godly water. Ang had her camera out and was snapping pictures. The girls took turns off an American Spirit Ashley had just rolled.

“Why are guys such assholes?” Ashley asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know. We’re scared I think.”

“Yeah that seems about right,” Ang added.

“It’s just that, I don’t know quite how to be myself and be with someone at the same time. And I don’t know how to say it either. So I just shut down and get mean.”

“Yeah, same shit Chris does. Like, if I tell him one thing I don’t like then he flips out and says I’m impossible to deal with and overbearing.” 

“We want to be good at everything. And when we’re not, we want to blame it on you.”

“Well that’s fucked. Because right now I am sitting here feeling like something is wrong with me.”

We went back to Ang’s apartment huddled around my laptop to watch a TV show about Portland and talked about how we should just get a house there and have our own show. It was a nice distraction. I talked about Alexis a lot but it felt like therapy, grabbing it off my chest and throwing it into the air, so I could breathe and have a chance to feel some control.

10:08PM

I texted her the trailer for Interstellar with Matthew Mcconaughey. She asked if I was going to see it and I said no. I asked if we could still see movies together. 

“Yeah, why not?” She said.

10:47PM

Meditated for 25 minutes. Where in the brain can I learn to control pain and emotion? Why does it matter if I’m alone or with someone who loves me? There’s no reason to feel sad, and yet I do, all the time. 

Alexis texted me the next day about the foundation. She said she wanted to get more involved. She asked about my journaling process too. She wanted to make a few changes in her life and she thought I was a good person to help her. If she didn’t feel safe with me in her life romantically it seemed she still wanted me as a friend. It would be a hard transition for me, but she genuinely wanted my advice and I wanted to be there for her, however I could.

I emailed my mom and told her I sucked at being alone and I was scared and sad all the time. I told her there would be no Darci this year at Christmas and the thought of coming home was giving me anxiety

I know you hate being alone, you always have.  My heart is breaking for you. I have no answers.  Your standards are very very high and while I admire them, that person may not exist.  However, if that person does exist, YOU will be the one to find her. I know you are nervous about coming home but you are overthinking it.  It will be ok.

I went to a modern dance improv class with Jaime and Sarah. We rolled on the floor and I cried a little. The teacher looked at me, with her head tilted to the side, and smiled. 

I FaceTimed with my sister and my nephew. He was asking about me because in school they were putting together a puzzle of the US and he wanted to show me where California was.

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