Immoderate Thoughts On Love (What Else?)
I don't remember the last time I kissed someone, but it was more than six months ago and she kissed me.
Does that surprise you?
The thing that surprises me most is that I don't remember exactly when it happened. I am the master of dates, I believe in anniversaries that most people would forget as meaningless, but I can't recall that last kiss. Was it in my apartment? On the train? At the cafe? Early in December or late? Rushed or lingering?
I remember who it was with, but that kiss, like all the recent kisses, had become immaterial. Kissing itself became obsolete, and anyway, the most beautiful, important kisses I remember were the ones that didn't happen.
I have gotten a reputation as a bit of a baller, a player, a slut. I know where the rumors come from--- my mouth, because I talk big. I make jokes about having hos instead of girlfriends. I make out at parties. I had one week last summer in which I slept with three different people. I'd never done anything like that before, but it was summer and there was wine and life was epic and I partied like a rock star.
I met a girl and slept with her and eventually loved her but it didn't work. I met another girl and slept with her and I think she eventually loved me but it didn't work. That was the last kiss.
She came to the city and we had a romantic weekend and I tried tried tried to fall in love with her. It didn't happen, which was just as well, because the last day she was here she announced that she'd been seeing a boy she met in a coffeeshop. She departed as swiftly as she'd arrived and I decided that women are more trouble than they are worth and embraced late nights of working and falling asleep with the cat.
That has served me pretty well. I still talk like a player. I flirt madly at shows. Put me behind a merch table and you'll see--- I bat my eyes and smirk and flash my panties at people. That girl is a character. She is not a person. She sells tons of t-shirts and has too much fun, but ultimately the girl you meet at that table is way cooler than me. That girl would kiss you until you couldn't breathe.
This girl hesitates. This girl chooses to be lonely rather than to have meaningless sex. This girl got her heart broken last fall by a girl she never even kissed. This girl is baffled when she hears that people she's never met think she's hot. She's unnerved when she hears they want to sleep with her.
Life is strange and hard. I never know if a girl I meet wants me for my connections or my job or my haircut. It doesn't generally matter, because after the pain of last November I closed up the shop. I flirted, innuendos just below the surface of various conversations, but ultimately I was tired and finished with it. I resisted actual connection like I resist yoga and vitamins.
But then, when and where I least expected it, there appeared a crack in the wall. I reached into it and pulled out a crumpled note, my own good advice, dusty and years old.
When given the choice to love or not to love, love. Even when it's senseless, even when it will hurt, even when you probably shouldn't, even when it's complicated, even when it's hard.
I grabbed for a pen, scratched a new line in at the very bottom, and hid the note again for my future self to find.
Especially when it's hard.
Hi.
Love,
Beth
Does that surprise you?
The thing that surprises me most is that I don't remember exactly when it happened. I am the master of dates, I believe in anniversaries that most people would forget as meaningless, but I can't recall that last kiss. Was it in my apartment? On the train? At the cafe? Early in December or late? Rushed or lingering?
I remember who it was with, but that kiss, like all the recent kisses, had become immaterial. Kissing itself became obsolete, and anyway, the most beautiful, important kisses I remember were the ones that didn't happen.
I have gotten a reputation as a bit of a baller, a player, a slut. I know where the rumors come from--- my mouth, because I talk big. I make jokes about having hos instead of girlfriends. I make out at parties. I had one week last summer in which I slept with three different people. I'd never done anything like that before, but it was summer and there was wine and life was epic and I partied like a rock star.
I met a girl and slept with her and eventually loved her but it didn't work. I met another girl and slept with her and I think she eventually loved me but it didn't work. That was the last kiss.
She came to the city and we had a romantic weekend and I tried tried tried to fall in love with her. It didn't happen, which was just as well, because the last day she was here she announced that she'd been seeing a boy she met in a coffeeshop. She departed as swiftly as she'd arrived and I decided that women are more trouble than they are worth and embraced late nights of working and falling asleep with the cat.
That has served me pretty well. I still talk like a player. I flirt madly at shows. Put me behind a merch table and you'll see--- I bat my eyes and smirk and flash my panties at people. That girl is a character. She is not a person. She sells tons of t-shirts and has too much fun, but ultimately the girl you meet at that table is way cooler than me. That girl would kiss you until you couldn't breathe.
This girl hesitates. This girl chooses to be lonely rather than to have meaningless sex. This girl got her heart broken last fall by a girl she never even kissed. This girl is baffled when she hears that people she's never met think she's hot. She's unnerved when she hears they want to sleep with her.
Life is strange and hard. I never know if a girl I meet wants me for my connections or my job or my haircut. It doesn't generally matter, because after the pain of last November I closed up the shop. I flirted, innuendos just below the surface of various conversations, but ultimately I was tired and finished with it. I resisted actual connection like I resist yoga and vitamins.
But then, when and where I least expected it, there appeared a crack in the wall. I reached into it and pulled out a crumpled note, my own good advice, dusty and years old.
When given the choice to love or not to love, love. Even when it's senseless, even when it will hurt, even when you probably shouldn't, even when it's complicated, even when it's hard.
I grabbed for a pen, scratched a new line in at the very bottom, and hid the note again for my future self to find.
Especially when it's hard.
Hi.
Love,
Beth