Breaking Class
The following is not food related.
Among the reasons my lover listed for breaking up with me was this one:
"I wouldn't be able to commit to you until you finish getting your degree. Not your Bachelor's, but anesthesiology school, and that wouldn't be fair to you, to ask you to wait."
I mulled this over for a few days, especially during the seven hours we were at the hospital for his biopsy. For five hours he slept a drugged sleep, and I waited and watched to the intermittent hum of a blood pressure cuff. That's a lot of time for thinking. And a lot of white. Surely my lover was dreaming happy dreams.
So last night I asked him to sit and chat with me. We sat and talked about frivolous things, until I asked, "Can you tell me why you say you wouldn't commit after I got my bachelor's degree? Is it about money?" After all, after the BSN I'd be making only a regular nurse's salary, which is good, but not amazing. It's only after anesthesiology school that I'd be making over 100,000 a year.
"No, it's not about the money. I don't know why." We went quiet and I watched him think about this for a bit, until he reiterated, "I'm sorry, I just don't know."
"You don't even have a bachelor's degree," I pointed out. "And you are breaking up with me partially because I don't yet have a Master's degree in nursing."
"I know. I just...I don't know why it's important for me for you to have an advanced degree.
I thought for a moment, and then changed the subject. "Tell me something. If X were single, would you date her?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Because I think we'd have different relationship expectations."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Why didn't you mention her education? She doesn't have a degree, and she currently works as a secretary for less than $30,000 a year." (Her boyfriend pays for designer label clothing she wouldn't be able to afford on her own and my lover thinks she has great taste in clothes, but that's neither here nor there.)
He blinked rapidly, "Well, I think it's because she ran a business of her own once."
"What about the jobs I've worked? I worked tech support and IT for six years, and made decent money, and I've spent many, many years supporting myself by working hard in all kinds of work. Doesn't that count for something? Why wouldn't she have to have a degree? Why don't you have to have one? Why are the standards different for me? Moreover, why isn't a degree good enough for me, why do I have to have an advanced degree?"
We were quiet and then I said, "It's class. It's about class."
He thought it over and agreed. "You're right. I didn't think...I try not to be. I try really hard."
"That hurts. That hurts a lot."
"I'm sorry."
"It does hurt, but I'm really glad you were honest with me. I'd rather know than not understand. Thank you."
We talked some more, and later I massaged his head and face with oil and read to him aloud. Then I went into the bathroom and cried silently. Later, we went to lie down and sleep next to each other, and neither one of us seemed to want to stop talking. It's almost as if we're trying to pack a lifetime into a few weeks. We give each other advice, we hug and we talk. He's going to write down the isbn numbers of books in my library that he wants. Secretly, I will do the same with his books. I alternate days spent crying hysterically and trying hard to get my shit together with days spent clinging like I've never done before. I know that once I'm out of this house, it's over, really over. I'm too much in love to be friends, to be close, to watch other women take my place, while I stand out here and want and want and want.
Class is such a strange thing. I grew up in a house five times the size of my lover's childhood house, and on land more than two hundred times the size of his backyard. I went to private school, and owned at least as many books, if not more. My diet was just as good, and probably better. But my father didn't own an airplane or a sailboat or European cars, nor did my parents have patrician attitudes that they passed on. I wasn't taught to dress stylishly, nor do I crave designer clothing or jewelry. I'm also a Southerner, and I desire plain food and plain speaking. I'm not capable of understanding several thousand dollars spent on a snowboarding wardrobe.
But still, I can connect with people who are different, and I am in love with him. It doesn't have to be this way, but he's convinced himself it does. When I ask him to explain items on his list, he says, "I don't know," and repeats the list. But in six months he will no longer be saying, "I don't know," because he will have repeated a litany until it finds reasons.
I can do nothing that I haven't already done. I can go forward, and finish my degree, and someday I will have jumped class, and my rural background. But by that time we be different people in different places and I know he will not wait for me.
My lover has never worked what I think of as a real job, a basic job, a learning kind of job. His first job was for IBM, or NASA or something equally crazy. I can never keep it straight. While he was in college on a full scholarship (which he consquently fucked up, leaving without a degree and with a level of debt that I find it even difficult to contemplate), I was out busting my ass working in office jobs, gas stations, grocery stores, golf course maintenance, and housecleaning. I find it appalling that this doesn't qualify me for a relationship. I'm not just hurt, I'm angry.
Among the reasons my lover listed for breaking up with me was this one:
"I wouldn't be able to commit to you until you finish getting your degree. Not your Bachelor's, but anesthesiology school, and that wouldn't be fair to you, to ask you to wait."
I mulled this over for a few days, especially during the seven hours we were at the hospital for his biopsy. For five hours he slept a drugged sleep, and I waited and watched to the intermittent hum of a blood pressure cuff. That's a lot of time for thinking. And a lot of white. Surely my lover was dreaming happy dreams.
So last night I asked him to sit and chat with me. We sat and talked about frivolous things, until I asked, "Can you tell me why you say you wouldn't commit after I got my bachelor's degree? Is it about money?" After all, after the BSN I'd be making only a regular nurse's salary, which is good, but not amazing. It's only after anesthesiology school that I'd be making over 100,000 a year.
"No, it's not about the money. I don't know why." We went quiet and I watched him think about this for a bit, until he reiterated, "I'm sorry, I just don't know."
"You don't even have a bachelor's degree," I pointed out. "And you are breaking up with me partially because I don't yet have a Master's degree in nursing."
"I know. I just...I don't know why it's important for me for you to have an advanced degree.
I thought for a moment, and then changed the subject. "Tell me something. If X were single, would you date her?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Why not?"
"Because I think we'd have different relationship expectations."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Why didn't you mention her education? She doesn't have a degree, and she currently works as a secretary for less than $30,000 a year." (Her boyfriend pays for designer label clothing she wouldn't be able to afford on her own and my lover thinks she has great taste in clothes, but that's neither here nor there.)
He blinked rapidly, "Well, I think it's because she ran a business of her own once."
"What about the jobs I've worked? I worked tech support and IT for six years, and made decent money, and I've spent many, many years supporting myself by working hard in all kinds of work. Doesn't that count for something? Why wouldn't she have to have a degree? Why don't you have to have one? Why are the standards different for me? Moreover, why isn't a degree good enough for me, why do I have to have an advanced degree?"
We were quiet and then I said, "It's class. It's about class."
He thought it over and agreed. "You're right. I didn't think...I try not to be. I try really hard."
"That hurts. That hurts a lot."
"I'm sorry."
"It does hurt, but I'm really glad you were honest with me. I'd rather know than not understand. Thank you."
We talked some more, and later I massaged his head and face with oil and read to him aloud. Then I went into the bathroom and cried silently. Later, we went to lie down and sleep next to each other, and neither one of us seemed to want to stop talking. It's almost as if we're trying to pack a lifetime into a few weeks. We give each other advice, we hug and we talk. He's going to write down the isbn numbers of books in my library that he wants. Secretly, I will do the same with his books. I alternate days spent crying hysterically and trying hard to get my shit together with days spent clinging like I've never done before. I know that once I'm out of this house, it's over, really over. I'm too much in love to be friends, to be close, to watch other women take my place, while I stand out here and want and want and want.
Class is such a strange thing. I grew up in a house five times the size of my lover's childhood house, and on land more than two hundred times the size of his backyard. I went to private school, and owned at least as many books, if not more. My diet was just as good, and probably better. But my father didn't own an airplane or a sailboat or European cars, nor did my parents have patrician attitudes that they passed on. I wasn't taught to dress stylishly, nor do I crave designer clothing or jewelry. I'm also a Southerner, and I desire plain food and plain speaking. I'm not capable of understanding several thousand dollars spent on a snowboarding wardrobe.
But still, I can connect with people who are different, and I am in love with him. It doesn't have to be this way, but he's convinced himself it does. When I ask him to explain items on his list, he says, "I don't know," and repeats the list. But in six months he will no longer be saying, "I don't know," because he will have repeated a litany until it finds reasons.
I can do nothing that I haven't already done. I can go forward, and finish my degree, and someday I will have jumped class, and my rural background. But by that time we be different people in different places and I know he will not wait for me.
My lover has never worked what I think of as a real job, a basic job, a learning kind of job. His first job was for IBM, or NASA or something equally crazy. I can never keep it straight. While he was in college on a full scholarship (which he consquently fucked up, leaving without a degree and with a level of debt that I find it even difficult to contemplate), I was out busting my ass working in office jobs, gas stations, grocery stores, golf course maintenance, and housecleaning. I find it appalling that this doesn't qualify me for a relationship. I'm not just hurt, I'm angry.