i take back all I said in my flush of rage about my DSL technician. He came. I saw. We conquered.
The first time in my life I waterskied was with a boy (my age) I had a crush on. I didn't know then any better than today how to behave under the weight of this isolation that's been my life. I vaguely remember the water, the boy, the thrill, all of it somewhere outside the strategy meetings I was constantly attending in my head. 'Now what would I be doing right now if I weren't me?' I asked myself incessantly. 'What's the spontaneous thing to do?' The answer—just as the throttle was pushed, as sweet Bryce watched from the back of the boat his friend was piloting, as I rose up from the glassy water like I had done this a hundred times before—was to fall. Deliberately.
Being me is a secret. It can't be revealed; I can't let an unguarded moment happen. I have to be whoever I or you or we think I am. In the case of my water-skiing crush, I thought he'd think I was lying about never have done it before if I didn't fall. He told me I probably would the first time. I try to be who he thinks I am—whoever 'he' happens to be. It's impossible, but I keep trying because I can't, or won't (I really don't know which) allow the real me to come out. Abused children don't so much keep events secret—'Grampy sucked my dick,' or 'Daddy fucked me'. They keep the very existence of themselves secret. It's a little boy's only defense; the genuine, spontaneous, real person they are inside is simply too terrified to come out. Even when they are not little boys anymore. It's an existential game of hide and seek, and I can never afford to come out to see if you have stopped playing.
hi, I'm Greg." Tall boy, early twenties, his big warm hand engulfs mine easily. His hair is brown with streaks of lighter brown, natural, not colored. Slender, elegant yet youthful, serene in his motions, and calm and comfortable in his speech, slightly accented with a North Carolina drawl. "I'm here to install your DSL."
"Welcome, finally." Hide and seek continues.
Moments, upon moments, upon moments, each a wave, a rush, a pull up out of glassy water: his poised patience as I feverishly break into the basement to which I assured them I had a key; his attentive deciphering as I stumblingly explain the wiring changes I have made; the vision of his long frame folded in a completely comfortable pose as he sits on the corner of my futon; the gentle movements of his slender fingers over the keyboard on his ThinkPad. Greg chatted easily, he endured my nervous efforts to be spontaneous. He accepted a coffee I prepared for him, after we finished running up and down the stairs from the basement. As he sat there talking to his network operations center and programming the router, I could see his white sock, one of those half-socks that just barely come up over your ankle, and I could see the little hairs on his leg. And with each moment, the strategy session in my head said, fall. Fall. Stay safe, and fall.
Greg's face was honest and expressive, his brown eyes beautiful—not just in themselves, but far more for the way he used them. I don't often see me reflected like that. It was an event.
i am trying to make my experience today sound like the cliche of wanting sex with the pizza boy, and I am tempted to pretend that's all I saw in my guest. That would be an escape from the goddamn repetition of falling out of me whenever 'me' is drawn toward any glimmer of a genuine human engagement. But sex is just another way for me to fall, disguised as something less lonely.
No. I wanted to see it all as sex; I wanted to sexualize my reaction to this young man in my apartment because he was way too close. I'll probably turn it into a fantasy later. But, in truth, that's not what I saw, and that's not how I reacted. This was simply a decent human being treating me decently, and that laid bare the cold stone of my heart, which terrified me. And to make matters worse, he also happened to be damn attractive.
Sometimes we pretend to live. Even with a so-called 'soulmate', we sometimes pretend to be totally unguarded and ready for anything, our heart supple in his hands, because that's how it's supposed to be. It's all supposed to be unplanned, spontaneous, carrying us on the flow of each unpredictable moment to an exponentially unpredictable destination, and we are supposed to like it. In my experience, only in rare perfect moments do most of us truly live, the rest of the time we just pretend. But it is not a thing to be condemned. At those times, pretending is the very best that we can do, it is our hearts most decent effort to be where it knows it was meant to be, warm and supple in the hands of life. That is a heroism to be honored, and the real joy is in knowing that hearts like these can't keep from falling, in a rare and perfect moment, right into the gentle hands of love.
It's really not so far to fall...
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