Well, I wrote a charming piece of negativity and fear last week, and was feeling pretty good about myself until I got comments from a woman who is scared to be out on her own again. As I read her comment I wanted to leap through cyberspace, take her hand and plead: “No, no, don’t be scared! Life is good! Love is good! It’s real and it’s worth looking for! Put yourself out there, take a risk, I believe, I believe, I believe in love!”
But that’s not what I wrote about in my piece. What I wrote was about giving up, giving in to fear and buying into the idea that happiness has an expiration date. I betrayed myself, and that’s really been bugging me. So, I rewrote the piece. Just a bit. Just enough to shift it to the positive outlook I truly have about my present relationship, despite recent history and the mind-numbing repetition of my past three-in-a-row Summer breakups.
The best learning from this is realizing how worried I am that no one will like me or my writing if it’s positive, happy, confident and secure. How attached I am to hooking people with my angst. Well, all of life is an experiment, so we’ll see how this one goes. Read both pieces, let me know what you think. They’re both true, oddly enough, the difference is just frame of mind and point of view.
Fringes of Love
“Those who study history are unlikely to repeat it.”
July 2007
The Fringe
The Capital Fringe Festival. So glad to be able to catch it, the silver lining to having had to come home from the beach early. Nearly one hundred low budget, edgy and raw performances put on by regular people. All you have to do is submit your name and if you’re one of the first hundred in, you’re in. No jury. No rules. Spontaneous dance performances on street corners. Random images projected on brick walls in alleys. Abandoned buildings-turned-venues featuring operettas, one-man-shows, puppetry… this is awesome. And only $15 per ticket. We’ve seen some amazing stuff. We’ve seen some crap. It’s been great.
To stay out of the pouring rain I stood under the awning, livid that he was taking so long. “Just turn it off and walk away!” I shouted at no one in particular. Fringe has a very strict No Late Admittance policy. If he kept screwing around trying to find the perfect parking spot, I was going to be out thirty dollars. Man, he made me mad. Daily. Finally, I saw him coming down the block. His impossibly large green and white umbrella bobbing as he jumped over puddles. My husband. Tears welled up in my eyes, flowed down my face and mixed with the rain. I felt sick. I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t want to be married anymore. I couldn’t take another single moment with this man.
The Sex
We’d be married for seven years. What sex?
The Trip
We’d gone to the beach to fix it. “It” being everything. The little fights, the silent scorn.
Sitting there on the beach, reading “Eat, Pray, Love”, I got to page twelve, the part where the author realizes she doesn’t want to be married anymore, but that “the only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying”. Blinking back tears, I put the book down, stood up, and told my husband I was going to get an ice cream. By the time I got back to our blanket he had picked up book, and had read to that same page twelve. Without a word we went back to the hotel, packed up our stuff and drove home, a day early. At least we’d catch the last half of Fringe.
The Breakup
“Hon, I have got to go.”
“Where you gonna go, Jenn?”
“I don’t know. But I have got to leave this mediocre marriage on the off chance I can find something amazing.”
It was the day before Labor Day.
July 2008
The Fringe
I love Fringe. I’ve decided to make July all about Fringe – I’ve volunteered to work box office for as many shows as they can schedule me for, which is 19. I’ve gotten tickets for as many shows as I can see in-between volunteer shifts, which is 12. All Fringe, all the time. Awesome.
We’d had our first real date over Memorial Day weekend, a day trip down to Fredericksburg for lunch and ice cream. Now it was July and Christian had taken the Metro into the city to meet me for the Metamorphosis show. I stood outside the theatre waiting for him, feeling a little sick to my stomach. Sure, I hadn’t had anything to eat for hours, but what was really bothering me was that it was a year ago to the day I’d been standing outside this very theatre, in the rain, watching my husband and his green and white umbrella. Now here came Chris, walking up the same block, but it was sunny; so no umbrella. Odd, though, he had the same moody, disaffected gaze and, oh dear lord, I hadn’t noticed before, but he was the same height as my ex-husband.
The Sex
I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can have sex with someone other than my husband. Mission accomplished.
I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can have an orgasm with someone other than my husband (it’d been years) or my vibrator (twice a day lately). Mission accomplished. (although the vibrator is better).
The Trip
So very exciting to be invited as the girlfriend/guest of Amerivision’s top salesman – a four day three night all expenses paid trip to Chicago! The first week of August, with black tie galas, top dollar entertainment and a suite at the Ritz. This is living. This is the life I was born to live. Five-starring it with a tall, good looking man who owns his own tux. A tall good looking man who tore holes in the tux he owned when, in a drunken rage, he climbed up on stage and assaulted one of Brian Setzer’s back up singers.
The Breakup
“Chris, I can’t see you anymore.”
“Why not?”
“This isn’t working out, and I’m uncomfortable with how much you drink.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a bitch.”
It was Labor Day. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
July 2009
The Fringe
Okay. So this will be my best Fringe ever. I’m volunteering twelve shifts. I’ve got tickets to eight shows. And I’m performing, yes, PERFORMING in a five show run. Oh dear god. I’m living the dream. And Rob is coming to all five shows. He didn’t tell me directly – I read it on his blog, where he wrote: “my girlfriend is in five shows; I’ll see all her shows”. Girlfriend.
We’ve been dating since Memorial Day – well, that’s when I conceded that we were indeed dating. He’d pursued me for months, but it was over Memorial Day weekend that I got on board. We’d fallen into a nice routine of daily emails, suggestive texts, and making out in parking lots around town. I was calling it The Summer of Love #2.
The Sex
One orgasm a night is good stuff. Two is decadent. Three wears me out and four? Well, four just pisses me off.
The Trip
The light at the end of the exhausting Fringe season was a trip to Sarasota in early August. Once there, we slept late, took long walks on the beach, and ate out every meal. On the flight home I was ready to tell him. I’d been stewing about it, stressing about it, talking to my friends about it for weeks but now I was ready. I was in love with him. I loved him. We were sitting in the last row of the plane; the engine noise was deafening. “I am so in love with you!” I shouted, but I don’t think he heard me.
The Breakup
“Baby, we have a problem.”
“What is it, Rob?”
“Well, baby, you’re funny, you’re smart, and you’ve got a smokin’ hot bod, but I can’t see you anymore.”
“Why not, Rob?”
“Oh, I should have a solid reason for that, right? Damn. Hmm. Nope. Just don’t want to see you anymore.”
It was the day after Labor Day. This one took a while to get over.
July 2010
The Fringe
This year I’m volunteering box office for eleven shows. Seeing nine. Performing in five. Four of them are sold out already. I’m on cloud nine. And dating a wonderful man. I am crazy about this man. He’s tall, he’s smart, he’s funny, he tolerates me and my mercurial moods I got the big ILY a few weeks ago. Memorial Day came and went, marking our four months of dating, so this is not another Summer of Love.
The Sex
Once a day is good. Taking turns is awesome. Laughing and being truly present is sublime.
The Trip
We have a trip planned in early August, but I’m thinking about canceling it. I’m feeling a little superstitious about the patterns of the last three Summers.
The Breakup
I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I’m nervous. If this summer ends with my broken heart I’m going to officially quit. I’ve even got a back up plan: I’ve always imagined myself the withered spinster, living in the dilapidated house on the corner with scraggly trees and lots of cats. Forty-two is plenty old enough to get started on that.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Things are fine. Sure, we’ve started with the petty arguments, the spending more time apart, the getting caught up with our own things and the falling by the wayside are the good night calls, the check in emails, the spontaneous poetry… But back here on planet earth I know it’s just that it’s just the pomp and circumstance of a whirlwind romance winding down. It always does. Yes, it is the end – the end of the getting to know you, of best behavior, of impressing each other and of putting on airs. Now comes the good stuff, fingers crossed, the real stuff. The stuff that can last. The settling in, the acceptance, the deeper knowing and trust and commitment – all the stuff I know I really, really want.
I’m in. I think this is going to be the best Labor Day ever.