Reconciling Saints

Let’s say that you love someone so much that you don’t even want to think about not having them in your life. There comes a day when you’re both arguing a lot, but you still cannot think of life without him. You think to yourself, “If I were a friend of mine and I asked me for advice, I would say it’s time to leave.” Yet, you can’t bear the thought because the thought alone breaks your heart and makes you almost cry. You wish instead that maybe you’d just die. Mainly, though, really, you wish that it would all go back to how it was, that this bad period would end. 

One day, however, with your heart breaking, you decide that you have to step out there and either lose him (which is killing you even thinking that) or that he’ll wake up and see that there is a problem and since he also cannot even fathom life without you, he’ll help you work through this.

You know that this could break you but you’re heart’s already breaking so, really, what more can you do to your already breaking heart? It’s bruised and battered as it is, you’re merely trying a radical surgical procedure.

You start off a conversation one night, putting how you feel out there for him to see. This is my blood; drink this in memory of me. Then you tell him that you might have to move out on your own in order stop feeling 5,000 miles away when he’s sitting next to you on the couch.

He, of course (it’s only human), get’s pissed off and tells you your being dramatic, not realizing that the wine he’s drinking really is the life’s blood that pumps your heart.

It’s breaking.

So, with that conversation done and another day of your heart cracking, you decided to go and hunt out apartments for you. All the while you’re feeling ill when you think of what furniture is yours and what you might have to buy for your new apartment because the way it’s looking, he very well might call your bluff.

After a few days of this, you’ve actually staunched the bleeding of the broken heart and kept the crack from getting any bigger and, most importantly, stopped it from splitting your heart in two. Also, you’ve found an apartment that you can afford that will accept your flawed credit history.

So on your way home, with the application in hand, you think of how you’re going to broach the subject and most importantly, when. This allows your heart to crack infinitesimally more. You think you might throw up.

That evening, when he gets home from work, you show him the papers and you say, “I found an apartment. Now, either I’m going to move or, if you want to take a look at the place and you prefer it to this one, you can move there.”

He looks at you like you’ve grown a second head.

You blink, take in a breath and say, “I told you that I would not be just an object in your life. If we’re going to live like we’re just friends, albeit not one of my best friends ‘cause living with them was actually fun, then I want my own place. I can’t take this anymore.”

For once (ha!) he looks at you like you’re not only serious, but like that's a gun in your hand and you’re actually mugging him. Even better, he knows that you are mugging him, except it’s yourself that you’re stealing away from him and he just can’t believe it.

This is really happening, you say.

Something about that look he gives you gives you a little strength. Something stops the bleeding crack in your heart. You swallow and with a little less shake in your voice, and what feels like a little more saliva in your mouth, you tell him, “I said, you can stay here or you can take a look at this apartment (you shake the papers in your hand…brazen!) and if you like it, you can move there.”

“You’re serious,” he says finally finding his voice.

“I told you. You didn’t listen.”

You start speaking in shorter sentences, becoming less expository because, well, you rather like the feeling of this.

There is only a little part of you now, that’s whispering out of the crack that’s now permanently cemented in your heart, “I didn’t want to do this; I had to.”

Then, just like that, your world is different and you learn that that love is gone and you can live without him, or will one day if you have to.

I trudge through halls of my high school clutching my hall pass waiting to shove it under the nose of anyone who might dare to question why I’m not in class. I clutch the strap to my ruck sack hoping it doesn’t break for the umpteenth time under the strain of a few (but heavy) books that will get me through the last few periods of the day. I won’t make it, so why do I expect my ruck to? I clutch my tears to my eyes hoping to god that I make it to the counselor’s office, the only place that I can shed them and unload the heavy ruck, the heavy thoughts and my body which seems to weigh more than anyone could imagine.

I don’t always remember what it is that I have to say to Anne. I don’t even remember to call her Miss Spinner because to me she’s just Anne. I sometimes have to wonder, how does she have the infinite patience to deal with all this, with the heaviness that I unload here in her office?

I remember the outside of her office very clearly because it was the place that I had to sit to wait while she had a conference with my parents. It was torture and I memorized every bit of it that one time that I had to sit outside of it because I couldn’t cry there, it was too public. The tears could only be allowed to spill when I crossed the threshold of her office. From time to time I could hear terms like “over dramatic” and “typical teenager” come through on my parents’ voices. From Anne I heard the “maybe you should”s and the “perhaps she would benefit”s come through.

Mainly I tried to tune it out. I didn’t want to hear what she tried to convey to my parents. I had already tried and they would not be budged. They didn’t want to hear about how brilliant I was and or that there were miracles that happened every day in the rising and setting of the sun.

Hell, it’s a catholic school so I rolled my eyes at what I thought was catastrophic and remembered there were children starving somewhere in some war torn country. I felt a little bad that what I couldn’t live through was simply one full day in class in high school.

I wondered what was wrong with me that I couldn’t get through a day without gasping my way to Anne’s office to unload and feel like I never wanted to leave it, my sanctuary. All I knew was that I couldn’t.The difference was that unlike a couple of my cousins, I didn’t want to end it all, just the parts that made me cry.

There was nothing wrong with me, I was just having a hard time getting through the day… and I don’t know why. My mom said it was just nerves and it happened to her all the time so she would ask me if perhaps some wine would help and pour me a glass.

“Sometimes I get like that,” she would say, placing the glass in front of me. “I’ll have a glass of wine and it takes out the tension, let’s me relax a little. Sometimes that’s all you need.”

I’d take the glass gladly, feeling the lethargy flow through me after a few sips. Maybe it was the ballet company and the AP classes and my choir that made it all so heavy - so many commitments. Once the wine hit all I could remember was the lightness of it all. I smile easily and I think about what it is that keeps me trying to get through those times when it’s not the books that are the heaviest things that I’m carrying.

There’s never enough wine, though. I’m amazed I’ve never tried to put any in the thermos. I blame the fact that it’s way too early as I try to make it to 0 period chemistry. I am not a morning person and I remember one day I put 2 different shoes from 2 different pairs of black 3 holed shoes together. In the dark, like it is when I’m trying to get ready for school at stupid o’clock in the morning, they look the same. Once the sun comes out, though, it’s very apparent that they are two VERY different shoes, including the fact that they are half an inch different in height.

I’d like to add that the new added contacts make me have to wake up super early. Yes, where vanity never succeeded before, I am now stuck waking up at least an hour early so that I have enough time to try and try and try until I get my contacts in my eyes. Vanity 1, Me 0. Fuck the glasses! I didn’t have to wear them before and I didn’t want to wear them now, so I will take the time to make sure that I can get these fuckers in my eyes.

This must be what it’s like to be one of those girls that so desperately needed to get their hair just right and their make up flawless.It’s a good thing that I didn’t have that need.

Here’s the way I see makeup: if you need that to enhance who you are, then you have issues. There is nothing wrong with the way I look and everyone looks a bit clownish at 16 with makeup. That's just my opinion, though. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll throw some on if I’m off to a show or something but it’s definitely more for theatrics than to make myself look prettier. In my opinion, I'm fine as is.

Somehow, though, the contacts did it. Pathetic.