Not Yourself

The Englishman is leaning against the bar and talking about Paris - he was there in the fall to visit a friend - and you tell him you were there once when you were 21 and saw the Eiffel Tower twice in two days and that the Tower, along with the small room in the hostel that was filled almost entirely by two single beds, is all you remember of the city. You are reading A Moveable Feast you tell him and you want to go back to Paris one day. He's reading it too, he says. The book is in his pack in the hostel. You take a drag off The Englishman's cigarette and his longish hair brushes against your ear as he moves close to tell you something and you wish that you were not already sleeping with someone because you wouldn't mind inviting him to stay at your apartment for the night to lie in bed and talk about Paris and politics and Hemingway and how the thing about travel is, it only makes you want to travel more, because the world is so vast and it seems unfair that we'll finish our lives without seeing the whole thing. You think of how Hemingway said hunger sharpens our perceptions and you want to quit your job and sell your home and cancel your car insurance and go with The Englishman to Croatia, where he said he lived for five months, poor and wild and happy. But you are already sleeping with someone and he's asked that you not sleep with anyone else and you said that you won't and neither should he.

The Englishman finishes his beer and says he has to go and gives you a sudden hug for which you haven't prepared and so your arms are shriveled together against your chest while he squeezes your torso. You take a cab from the bar to the apartment of The Man You've Been Sleeping With and on the third buzz, the hall light comes on and he comes down the stairs behind his dog that now has his paws up on the window of the front door, scratching at the glass. You kiss The Man You've Been Sleeping With and he says, "Did you have a cigarette?" and you tell him, "Just a little bit of one." He asks you later where you got it and you tell him, "From an Englishman," and you know that he means to ask who you talked to and if he bought your drinks.

After you've brushed your teeth and are wearing his sweatshirt and he's spooned against the back of your body and his dog is lying at the foot of the bed, he says he wants to buy some plants for his living room and could you help him pick some out? You tell him jade plants are easy and philodendrons grow anywhere and that you will go with him to the nursery sometime next week. And you want to tell him it's okay that he introduced you as his girlfriend to that guy outside the falafel place last week. And you want to move your things into his big, beautiful, empty apartment and help him finish painting the dining room and hang pictures on the walls and host a dinner party at the heavy wooden table he bought from the Amish furniture maker in Indiana. And it occurs to you that this would be so effortless; that you could simply fall into this vacant spot and set the cogs of a life into motion. And you stare into the gray light of the bedroom and feel a shot of panic that your time for hunger and adventure has passed.

A few days later at work you think of joining the Peace Corps. You've thought of this before, three years ago when you were lying in the park one afternoon and everything seemed easy and meaningless, and then you stopped thinking of it because you got a boyfriend. But now you're at work and the lawyer who's always wearing stripes with plaid is talking in a meeting about something that you know you should listen to, you know you should give a damn about, but you keep picturing yourself out in the sun somewhere with your hands in the dirt and you have the vague feeling that you'll be leaving here soon. And you go to bed that night and think, Next year at this time I might be teaching soil conservation in Suriname.

You wake the next morning with a throat full of thistles and a gong in your brain and you call your boss and tell her you're sick. You make a cup of tea and pile blankets onto the sofa and huddle in and turn on Good Morning America and wonder, What if I got the flu in Suriname?

In the early afternoon you decide to write because it helps you sort things out and you've been feeling out of sorts. Then, with your computer on your lap, you find that the narrative is coming only in the second person. Instead of "I", you type "you." And this is just how it's coming - the whole story in "you"s instead of "I"s - and you wonder if this is happening because these scenarios, these paths you've tapped out actually seem like impossibilities, nothing that you would ever do. Or if it's because they seem like options to be analyzed objectively. Or if it's just because you haven't felt like yourself lately.

It has been six months since you broke up with the man you thought you would marry and six years since you took that job just for the paycheck. It is eight months until you turn thirty. You don't know what you're doing and feel that the time for not knowing has passed. Your body is aching and you recline on the sofa and wait for something to change.

Comments

[citywendy]

Yes.

[Alli]

I even like the run on sentences.

[wordgirl]

I like all of it. Every word. It's got texture and movement.

[Mist 1]

I thought about joining the Peace Corps, but I got distracted by a sale of something meaningful like that.

[kris]

With the exception of the age and the stunning writing, did I pen this?

-- kris

[Vaguely Urban]

maybe the second person perspective was for my lovely friend who read this, and felt it was written to her. or maybe it was for me.
there are a lot of us yous out here.
thanks for putting this into such perfect words.

[Ken]

That is fucking great.

[Alice]

This is SO me. Except I married that man I thought I should marry... And several years down the road realized the mistake I had made, turned my life upside down, and started over again.

And here I am at the starting gate, again. This time, with a man I really, really love, but with so much confusion and unsurity about my future and what I'm doing with my life. Where to begin, what to do next, what direction to take, how I can better myself... All questions, so many questions.

Thanks for expressing this so beautifully!

[mysterygirl!]

Funny: on March 28, it was exactly six months since I broke up with the man I (once) thought I was going to marry, too. This post and your latest one, Extended Outage, especially resonate with me. Too bad I didn't find your blog last fall when we were both in the thick of it. :)