Dating Again
I haven't written in almost a year. I tried to tackle a chapter on Geoff's father, but he couldn't be captured. Too big of a man for my mind to grasp. Completely out of reach. I let my mind spin around in the past trying not to forget him... but sometimes you need to step away from the past to remember.
I started dating again. I didn't want to write. All the words I wrote for a season drained me of all the emotion I'd carried for years, leaving me feeling empty again. A good empty. Like when you haven't eaten for a long time.
The words, or building blocks of a well-written sentence are like threads of a loom, the various colors being the emotions directing the needle. My fingers were paralyzed, my heart calloused over, and my mind drifting contentedly toward a supervoid, when suddenly I was escorted into a wave of ecstasy. It just came upon me one day. I almost didn't recognize the feeling, a puddle of fear and excitement, pessimism and hope. A longing and a pushing away. My heart was at odds with itself, being that what evoked these feelings was a 19-year-old boy. An emerging man who seemed almost as lost and afraid of life as me. And hunger returned. I craved him like a starving child.
Jesse worked with me at the health food store. We started out just having tea together when the store was slow. I gave him a ride home when it was too cold to walk, though usually he preferred walking. We became friends quickly.
Daily he educated me on teas and herbs. Supplements he'd discovered and the illnesses they might cure. His dreams - literal dreams - as he seemed to somewhat loiter in them during his waking hours.
By the time we spent too much time together, we fell into something that felt like love. It was a crushing fall for me. The age difference made me question my own sense of morality. My friends didn't judge. Though it was still uncomfortable having these feelings.
I went to a house party to meet some of his friends one day and one of his friends was a boy I'd babysat. My father forbade it. "I don't want you having a relationship with him until he's 25."
I explored in my mind all the different ages we would be as he grew up to catch up with my adultness, and at just the perfect ages I imagined him, my age did not fit the picture. He would be 30 and I would be 46. He would be 46 and I would be 61. All the best retinols and serums and eye creams wouldn't keep me beautiful enough to match the majestic man I knew he'd turn out to be. He would certainly leave me someday.
I had to stop thinking about the age difference. It was a conscious choice I made. I gave up that worry. And one night, in full abandonment of the modesty mask I'd worn as a single woman for 5 years, I gave Jesse a hickey.
It was a playful kiss, void of any passion. The passion may have preceded but it left as soon as I lunged. We'd already exchanged verbal concurrences of our shared feelings, and I felt that his neck was safer than his lips. His lips might melt me. They were unapproachable. Full, soft, passionate lips - the ones all his beautiful words escaped from. A sacred part of his body, maybe, based on how he spoke to me. When I wasn't lost in his gaze during conversation, I mostly stared at his lips. They were perfect.
I loved talking to him. He preferred tea to alcohol and conversation to activity. He loved the things I did and had a spirituality so profound I wondered if he'd be a famous guru someday, and told him so. I wondered if God could have orchestrated this unlikely and socially frowned upon relationship. A 35-year old woman and a teenage boy? I convinced myself yes. It had to be. The feelings were so strong and held me hostage to believing so.
If Sheldon Cooper took a liking to health food and nature - he'd be Jesse. Jesse spoke in poetry sometimes. One day over tea he was telling me about his dreams, and how difficult it is to wake up. But when his eyes would open in the morning, he searched for God. A sign that today would be alright. "If God isn't the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning, I need to go back to bed," he said.
In his waking hours, when taking a pause from the company of his dream friends, he devoted himself to me. He introduced me to mystic music, guided me on night walks through the woods in foot-deep snow, and made me tea. Sometimes he would reach out and hold my hand or hug me for no reason at all. We squeezed when we hugged. I felt so close to him when this happened. These hugs. Like if we held each other long and hard enough, we'd become one person.
Much to my embarrassment, Jesse's dad commented on the hickey one day, elbowing me when he visited the store, and reminding me how unfortunate it was that Jesse suffered such a serious burn injury on his neck while fixing that muffler.
"Oh yeah. That was a shame." I answered back in all seriousness.
Finally one day Jesse and I kissed. I mean really kissed. It was out in his dad's garage where he'd built us a fire in the wood-stove and laid out a deck of cards to teach me a new game. I stood up and faced him to say good-bye for the night when the fire started to die, as I can't stand the cold, and he stood up too, but we had run out of things to say. He put his hands on my hips. Whether he was overly respectful or just scared to touch me anywhere else, I'll never know. The relationship didn't last. But that kiss filled me. I was warm all over. As if I'd never been kissed before, my body got the tingles of a teenage girl. I was young again. I was swimming in the puddle. My first love all over.
But the age difference was too much. Sixteen years. I was the same age as his mother. Something was wrong with this picture. Even though his parents supported it. I couldn't stifle these pressing concerns, this generational gap that made itself more evident as time went on. It crept up like a Jack-in-the-Box, and one day frightened me so much I began missing my empty feeling again.
To just go back and rewind and suppress...
If only he'd not come to volunteer at the store...
If only he wasn't born...
If only...
I kept a letter he wrote me. He handed it to me one morning at the store, after we had our first fight the night before. He probably suspected that some things better left unsaid are even better written down. I have it here with me:
"I'm happier with you. I love every dimension of you: personality, soft warm body, colorful face, colorless teeth, blue eyes, long brown beautiful naturally curly hair, the way you are, the characteristics of your uniqueness. I think about our smiles when I'm alone. How you balance me and teach me. You're making me better. You encourage, model, and motivate me to make better decisions. I can be myself with you. I can relax. You are so nice, so funny. You cook amazing food. I'm grateful for every hug, every kiss, every touch by you. I appreciate all we have done and all you have done for me. I feel unworthy, that I can't give you adequate repayment at this time. I want to give to you. I want you to be happy. Everyday I want to say, "I love you." You took a huge risk in dating me. I realized it would affect your personal life in negative ways if I were to disappoint you. You look and dress nice every day, clean well, drive well, take good care of your dogs and family and self. I am having difficulty expressing my feelings and concerns and I don't know what is best to say next, so I made this gratitude list that I may more clearly hear the voice of God if I am aligned with love and kindness."
That letter validated my existence in the moments I tearfully read it. I gave him a hug. We were cutting onions and both began to cry. I forgave him for what I felt was a grave offense against me and wanted even more to make us work, but when we had our next fight, a couple weeks later, it was our last.
One thing I do hold onto besides that letter is a silver chain. One he said he wore daily in high school. It's shiny and beautiful. Like his eyes. His eyes were deep and troubled as he handed it to me, like he might regret giving me this extension of himself. I put the necklace on remorselessly but took it off after our fateful second argument.
I kept the chain in my purse, thought of pawning it, sheerly out of financial desperation, but couldn't let it go.
Life is sad. Sad and hard. It's hard to let go of things. Harder than letting go of people, sometimes.
