m1911a1operator's Friends

Make a wish on it! I hope it crashes!
I opened up a suitcase at Mom's tonight, and found I had never unpacked it from the trip Mikey and I took to Florida when I graduated from college. It was my graduation present from him, a week in Clearwater. We went to the Salvador Dali museum, three Red Sox vs Rays games, the beach, the Kennedy Space Center, and had a marvelous time. It was one of our best vacations.

A pretty dress with a black lace waist, Hello Kitty sandals, an old battered glasses case, a lovely tropical bathing suit. Scraps of paper, museum pamphlets, little drawings on hotel stationary.... The dress and the bathing suit I had torn my bureau apart for more than once, I was happy to see them. Happier that I will fit in them both again. A reward from the life I had that I lost.

Frankie---Frankie? I pushed my fingers into the corners, unzipped the pockets, searched frantically. Folks might remember the mother of pearl fish I wore around my neck every day the last two years of college. It was a fish necklace my mother bought in Italy years before I was born. It hung from a lamp in her room when I was a child, where in fascinated me in setting sunlight evening times. She gave it to me when I moved to Matunuck, and I happily wore my little fish friend by the sea until he disappeared one day. The dress with the black lace waist and the tropical tankini were there--why wouldn't Frankie be?

I opened another pocket. More pamphlets, a gum wrapper, a dried out bottle of sky blue nail polish. Pulled through a black tank top, an empty gift shop bag. Then I picked up the battered glasses case--and it rattled.

I popped it open, and Frankie winked at me. He was tangled in his thin silver chain. I took him out, freed him, and put him back around my neck. Right where he belongs.

My devil horn barrettes--exactly what they sound like, two shining red devil horns that clip in my hair--were in the suitcase, a mystery. Why I brought them to Florida I don't recall.

A scrap of paper had directions scribbled down to somewhere forgotten in Apanaugh with a sketch of Johnny Damon as Jesus Christ holding a baseball bat on the back. There were words under the directions, upside down and I read them.

Mikey: Here comes another one!
Me: Make a wish on it!
Mikey: I hope it crashes!
(Us watching planes land at the airport).

I laughed a long time. And then I felt very sad. They say if you take how long you were with someone and cut it in half, that's how long it will take you to get over the relationship. Six years is a long time to be with someone, and three years to get over them some nights feels like an eternity. Most of the time, I feel really good. But opening this suitcase was like walking back into a room the two of us had just left, a window back in time.

It was so easy to be with Mikey. It was and it wasn't--anyone who knows us well knows how terribly we fought. And the issues we had, especially toward the end. But the first three years we had it so easy. We just watched movies, followed baseball, traveled around the country together, went everywhere together. Woke up in the mornings, I'd skip classes (it was the least I could do, he dropped out to spend more time with me, not that I knew for a year or two) we'd make breakfast, listen to music, make jokes. One of us or both of us would go to work. It was all so easy. Even the fights--and I'm only remembering the good bits there were a lot of fights, sometimes daily fights--were somehow enjoyable. Horrible dramas to play out and reconcile happily to, until I got sick. Four small words that turned us upside down, 'until I got sick'. Closed a door, shut a suitcase.

We moved out on our own, he OCD spread stretched its hunches untreated, I got sick, we turned inward against and away from each other. But why did it change? And how can anything nice remain nice when something so good became so cold and tight?

I've tried dating since, with painful results. Duane was just an unfortunate mess, from beginning to end. He was so kind to me, so sweet and thoughtful, but so smothering, so clinging, clutching, clawing. He was in love with the idea of being in love, and had a vision of me that was nothing close to who I am. I am too rude, too loud, independant, man-like in my confidence, speech, and humor. He was in love with loving a girl...and I am no delicate blossom. He seemed to never know me, and worse, to never want me to be me. Just a pretty girl who could be the face to all he hoped for out of life. It was a lot of pressure on me to be something different than who I love being. That's why I think it's so important to love yourself before you try loving someone else, so that when you meet someone who wants you to change, you can defend yourself to yourself and walk away intact.

And non-boyfriend, Tom. All the worse for how truly excited I was when we started dating. It was so easy to talk to him, on paper we were so good. Our tastes in movies and music were perfectly matched. He had a wealth of new songs and films to show me. We had a quirky, easy kind of humor early on. There seemed to be chemistry. Sure, there were differences, age the most obvious. With ten years between us, he asked more than once if his age bothered me. I never thought of it. Part of me even admired it, he had ten more years of knowledge on me. Who knew there was a Star Wars Christmas Special? He is a warm person, caring, but distracted. And by what, I don't know and have given up on discovering. Everything I had learned to give up on as only heart breaking was suddenly renewed wonderful when we started dating--and then so swiftly reaffirmed only heart breaking, reassured heart breaking, promised heart breaking. I want to stay friends with the man, and so I don't say much more. Suffice to say it was a disappointment for me.

All part of the healing process, I guess. The after shock heartaches of the one great quake. What has been so difficult to find in others, a man who likes me for me, a man who wants to spend time together, came so easily between Mikey and I. We could not get enough of each other's company, we were best friends. We took the good but fought the bad. I wish I had accepted more and resisted less. I wish we had walked away from more fights. I wish I had learned what we learned from each other before we met. I don't want to take these lessons else where. I don't want to start over, when each new start is just a disaster lying in wait behind beautiful eyes and thick lashes. I will. I know I will, I know there will be other eyes, there will be new hopes, but it is hard to envision it right now.

I have a lot of content nights, and a generous share of very happy nights. Now and then, though, I guess it can't be helped to come across some unpacked baggage. So to speak.

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