Familiar eyes
Once of the darkest periods of my adult life came after my first ordeal with Christine, we were co-dependently close friends who made out at Ottos whenever she wanted to see me, when she dropped me like a bad habit and broken heart the moment I questioned her behavior. I felt like I had lost my soul mate. A girl larger than life in her perfection and charm. Afterwards I could barely function, had very little time for girls, no hope for girls, and the best I really could manage was turning on my tv on Sundays to watch True Blood and getting absolutely shitfaced with John Huebert on Tuesday Boozeday. John, at that time, was facing a possible divorce with his wife and was drinking himself away from that pain. So we were a good pairing.
Let me hear about your woman and your suicidal idealizations. OK, here's mine! Cheery good times.
One of these nights we found ourselves at Double Down saloon, the last stop of our drink journey (Ottos --> Heathers ----> Double Down), and in the midst of a Christine bitch session John nodded at me, telling me to look over my shoulder. "Cute Girl Alert". Me, with nothing to lose, struck up conversation with them, asking them if it would be morally reprehensible for John to cheat on his wife given the current state of affairs (something like that) and the girls were drawn in by the absurdity of the approach. Little did any of us know, but we would remain in each other's lives with little abatement from that moment forward.
But perhaps most surprising, to me at least, is that one of those girls -- Stephanie -- within the next hour would pull me out of the killer clownshow that was Christine. And it was intangible. Accidental. Her spirit. Her smile. Her hopefulness for the future. It was so different from the jaded nihilism I tend to flock towards and, from her, it just felt right. But perhaps most of all, more than anything, was when we were saying our goodbyes and we locked eyes. And we paused. I stayed engaged, daring her to look away first. She kept looking forward, her eyes wide, round, and sympathetic. It felt like minutes. It would be foolish for me to say I had fallen in love with her in those seconds but it simply affirmed to me what I had begun to gather while inside. "Never let this girl go, Ryan, keep her in your life". It didn't matter that she was returning to Rome in two days and that she might not be back to the city. None of that mattered. I saw, felt, so much good in her that I knew I had to hold onto it. She was fortitude in a dark cynical world. She was optimism for all of tomorrows.
As the years passed, and girlfriends, Stephanie maintained a prominent figure in my life. Always as a friend, but never quite just a friend. There was always something a little extra there, always a bit of a mystery. But we never had any opportunity to explore it. The closest we got was years later, we had planned to both be single at the end of a summer, being fed up with our current mates, and though no one had overtly said as much it had been sort of unspokenly assumed that when she returned in September it would be the window to finally unwrap that mystery. Instead, Christine had reappeared and by the time me and Steph saw each other again I was engaged to be married. Unsurprisingly, it was Stephanie, and a few of my other closest friends, who helped pull me out of that nightmarish decision.
As years and now two more girlfriends passed she remains (while in a long term relationship that I'm surprised hasn't produced marriage or kids) that odd vision of hope and positive energy. I don't talk to her nearly as much, we're both very involved in our lives and relationships, but we're not off each other's radars. Not forgotten. And nearly a decade later in my darkest saddest most "wahhh I'm gonna be alone forever" moments I still think back to that drunken goodbye in front of Double Down saloon, the little too long eye contact, the dread lifting off of my shoulders, and the proclamation to never let this one go. An ode to the girl my heart never stopped loving.
If only if I had that kind of intuition more frequently, huh?
wasz, ryan
Let me hear about your woman and your suicidal idealizations. OK, here's mine! Cheery good times.
One of these nights we found ourselves at Double Down saloon, the last stop of our drink journey (Ottos --> Heathers ----> Double Down), and in the midst of a Christine bitch session John nodded at me, telling me to look over my shoulder. "Cute Girl Alert". Me, with nothing to lose, struck up conversation with them, asking them if it would be morally reprehensible for John to cheat on his wife given the current state of affairs (something like that) and the girls were drawn in by the absurdity of the approach. Little did any of us know, but we would remain in each other's lives with little abatement from that moment forward.
But perhaps most surprising, to me at least, is that one of those girls -- Stephanie -- within the next hour would pull me out of the killer clownshow that was Christine. And it was intangible. Accidental. Her spirit. Her smile. Her hopefulness for the future. It was so different from the jaded nihilism I tend to flock towards and, from her, it just felt right. But perhaps most of all, more than anything, was when we were saying our goodbyes and we locked eyes. And we paused. I stayed engaged, daring her to look away first. She kept looking forward, her eyes wide, round, and sympathetic. It felt like minutes. It would be foolish for me to say I had fallen in love with her in those seconds but it simply affirmed to me what I had begun to gather while inside. "Never let this girl go, Ryan, keep her in your life". It didn't matter that she was returning to Rome in two days and that she might not be back to the city. None of that mattered. I saw, felt, so much good in her that I knew I had to hold onto it. She was fortitude in a dark cynical world. She was optimism for all of tomorrows.
As the years passed, and girlfriends, Stephanie maintained a prominent figure in my life. Always as a friend, but never quite just a friend. There was always something a little extra there, always a bit of a mystery. But we never had any opportunity to explore it. The closest we got was years later, we had planned to both be single at the end of a summer, being fed up with our current mates, and though no one had overtly said as much it had been sort of unspokenly assumed that when she returned in September it would be the window to finally unwrap that mystery. Instead, Christine had reappeared and by the time me and Steph saw each other again I was engaged to be married. Unsurprisingly, it was Stephanie, and a few of my other closest friends, who helped pull me out of that nightmarish decision.
As years and now two more girlfriends passed she remains (while in a long term relationship that I'm surprised hasn't produced marriage or kids) that odd vision of hope and positive energy. I don't talk to her nearly as much, we're both very involved in our lives and relationships, but we're not off each other's radars. Not forgotten. And nearly a decade later in my darkest saddest most "wahhh I'm gonna be alone forever" moments I still think back to that drunken goodbye in front of Double Down saloon, the little too long eye contact, the dread lifting off of my shoulders, and the proclamation to never let this one go. An ode to the girl my heart never stopped loving.
If only if I had that kind of intuition more frequently, huh?
wasz, ryan