It’s entirely possible that the signs were there from the beginning. I just didn’t really know to look for them. In hindsight, it should have been obvious. They were pinned up on the wall the whole time.
Harold and I met the way I’ve always thought people should meet. In person, at a location where similar interests dictate that you are in the same place at the same time. More to the point, we met at a gig and a mutual friend was in the band. My girlfriend and I were perched on a speaker in the hot, sweaty, packed venue and making an endless stream of obnoxious albeit hilarious jokes at the expense of an embarrassingly drunk girl that we both worked with. We were enjoying each other’s company and inappropriate humour when he and his friend walked over to say hello and to inquire about what we could possibly think was so funny. He told me that I had a nice laugh though he was definitely being polite because I am certain we were laughing like a pair of jackals. We exchanged some high quality banter while his friend and mine were diligently playing the role of wing person. I don’t remember many more details about what was said. It was probably all shouting and nonsense anyways. What did surface in the conversation was that he was a chiropractor a fact that was memorable when coupled with the fact that he told me I had terrible posture. That’s when I knew I liked him. We never exchanged phone numbers. Possibly not even names. I wandered off to pursue a shiny object and then he and his less interesting friend were gone.
It was winter by the time we managed to track each other down again. Our first date was a few days before Christmas when we spontaneously decided to get together for dinner. As first dates go, it was lovely. He was charming and funny and attentive. He knew how to behave like a grown up which was a marked departure from most of the men that I had known up until that point. We bonded over a shared annoyance with people who don’t bring things to a dinner party and he was impressed by the fact that I owned an accordion. We would see each other again.
A few weeks later, when we went out to celebrate my 25th birthday we confirmed what was until that point only a suspected age gap. He had just celebrated his 40th birthday and was reluctant to tell me for fear that it may be an issue. To be fair, he did look very young with his carefully disheveled hair and cool sneakers. In principle, the age difference was not an issue. There was however an issue with our relationship. It had been percolating slowly, almost from day one, but I just didn't quite know how to put my finger on it.
Whenever I was with Harold, I always felt slightly disheveled. He was always the picture of perfect, lint free, wrinkle free, stain free living. It should go without saying that his posture was something to behold. The thing that stood out the most however was his constant, unrelenting, optimism. When I was in Harold's perfect grey and white apartment--a place that looked like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise--everything was in its place. Of the many things in that apartment that were always in their place, I would say that the self help books caught my attention first. When I was lying down, I would look over and see dozens of titles that I only recognized as the punchlines to jokes from The Simpsons:
-The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
-The Sixty Second Motivator
-Emotional Intelligence
-The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
-How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
-The Essential Deepak Chopra Series
-Say YES! To Success
-Unlimited Power
-Awaken the Giant Within
-The Secret
-Any many more!
...and they were all there, built into their perfect grey and white recessed bookshelf. I never asked about them.
A short while later we were having dinner in his perfect, symmetrical home when he started telling me about the last time that he went to a Tony Robbins seminar. "Really?! You actually went to one of those?!" I cackled insensitively.
It turned out that he had not only attended A Tony Robbins seminar. He has attended MOST Tony Robbins seminars. I started to get uncomfortable in my cold, white, straight-backed, hard plastic chair. He then proceeded to tell me with startling enthusiasm about how Tony 'builds you up and tears you down' over the course of a two day seminar (presumably at a local Marriott) and then how at the end of the two days he makes you walk over hot coals. After which you and 200 other assholes hug each other and unleash your power all over the place. Stunned, I tried to finish the rest of my dinner and change the subject. Things were starting to feel strange.
I kept telling myself that this was not the end of the world. That I should just get over it because Harold was a really nice man. To put it into terms that he could understand, I should have just channelled all of my inner strength and wisdom and...and...well, I don't actually know what the fuck you do with all of your inner strength and wisdom once it's channelled. Is there an explosion?
I came over one day after work and put my things in their usual spot; his small home office which had been doubling as a work bench and junk area. It was the only part of the apartment that was slightly chaotic and therefor I had been drawn to it from the start. Only this time, he had tidied it up. All of the papers and tools were gone and in their place sat some futuristic gadgets and a solitary laptop, no chords. On the wall I noticed something that I had never seen before. It was a collage of some sort. This wasn't the kind of collage that a young child would make at craft time and that you would stick on your fridge, this was something else. Something weird. I didn't really want to look at it for very long because it made me uncomfortable. Like the self help books and the hot coal walking I tried to ignore it. Later that evening when I went to get something from my bag I started to look at it again. This time with greater interest. I felt sick the moment I realised what it was.
The basic premise of The Secret is that if you visualise the things that you want most in this world, you will eventually get them from the Universe. It seems that if you send out positive energy into the Universe, it will, in return, send you a bunch of awesome shit. Readers of The Secret are told to create a visualisation board that helps them keep their focus on the things that they want. This is what I was looking at. Featured prominently on Harold's visualisation board included a fancy Mercedes, a luxury watch of sorts, a giant house in a beautiful suburb, a strange picture of a perfect looking family and the cherry on the cake, a cheque from the Bank of the Universe written to himself for $35 million. I very nearly threw up all over that damn collage.
When I brought up the fact that the relationship was no longer working, he was pretty surprised. I told him that while I didn't think that age would have been an issue at first, that it was starting to bug me. We were in different places and that I didn't want to hold him back from doing anything that he may have wanted to do. Never did I mention the fact that there were too many people in our relationship for it to work. Deepak, Tony, Rhonda. They all had something to say, they seemed to always want me to channel something into something else. I knew I couldn't stick around to hear it. Or visualise it.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
As Far Back as I can Remember
There are only a few things that I have clear memory of from the Catholic kindergarden that I attended when I was four. The first was an introduction to and subsequent love for Ghostbusters action figures after they were introduced to me by a boy who's name I can't remember. The second was the sense of shear terror that set in at the sight of what seemed like at the time, the world's largest and saddest looking Jesus nailed to the world's largest cross. Then there was the feeling of absolute disgust and anxiety that set in after finding a bunch of soggy communion wafers in the drinking fountain. (To this day, the idea of taking communion from a priest makes me dry heave. By extension, I will never drink grape juice or drink from a fountain as the association is still too strong). The final thing that I can remember about kindergarden was a boy named Rodney.
You must forgive the fact that the memory of my first interaction with a boy that was not a member of my family is a little bit blurry, but mainly this story is important to tell because it sets the stage perfectly for how my relationships with men would be going forward.
I can recall being transplanted into my kindergarden class a few months into the regular school year. My mother--one of the most incredible people I know--decided that it was time that I go to school. Even if it was a year earlier than most children are scheduled start. And so, as with most other things she set her mind to, she made it happen. The regular school system rejected me but quickly she discovered a loop hole in the system which allowed for children attending private schools to start their educations earlier than others. What this says about the education system, I can only speculate. And so with my new lunchbox in hand and my matronly uniform, and awesome LA Gear high tops, I arrived at my first day of school to the excited welcome of a classroom full of five year olds who were all keen to make the new addition feel welcome.
I certainly can't tell you what any of us spoke about. I'm sure it was earth shattering stuff though. What I can tell you is that pretty quickly into my education, I was faced with the uncomfortable problem of having a boy like me and that I didn't like back. (In subsequent stories, you will see that this trend reverses very quickly). What made the situation infinitely worse and infinitely more adorable was that this boy, Rodney, would show his feelings to me not with words, but instead with art. Every morning when we all arrived at school, Rodney would present me a hand drawn picture of hearts and rainbows in various configurations. Sometimes the hearts would float on clouds, but most of the time they just floated around the rainbows in a haphazard manner.
Here are some other things that I recall about Rodney's tokens of affection: They were always drawn on pieces of cardboard found in pantyhose packages--which I always thought was strange. How much used pantyhose was being generated in his house? He would always present them to me in front of his mother, his aunt and his grandmother who always dropped him off at school together. They would laugh adoringly at the bold gesture of their young son/nephew/grandson while I would accept the gift, feeling slightly confused and embarrassed. He would always follow up on my level of happiness with the gift later in the day to which I would always lie and say that I was extremely happy and that his drawings were the greatest thing ever. I would then throw them in the garbage when I got home, never discussing my new suitor with my family.
The hearts and rainbows continued to pour in for months, or maybe it was weeks, I can't say for certain. What I do remember very clearly though was the day I had to tell Rodney that I was no longer interested in receiving his pantyhose cardboard drawings. It wasn't going to work out between us, we were just going in different directions. It's not you, it's me. He was heartbroken, I'm sure of it. In fact, he was so upset by my vicious words that, after crying a little, he promptly turned his attention to my best friend at the time. He told her I was horrible and they went off to play together.
The next morning, Rodney was delivered by the usual gaggle of women who were watching what was about to happen next with the utmost interest.
As I was standing outside, Rodney walked directly past me and straight to my friend. He smiled at her, and pulled from his bag a piece of cardboard who's origins I can only assume came from a package of pantyhose, and presented to her a hand drawn picture of hearts, rainbows, a sun, some clouds. The picture was much larger than the ones I had become accustomed to receiving over the months, or was it weeks? Very quickly though it would become apparent why her hearts and rainbows were so much bigger than the ones he usually drew for me. It was because when he presented me with my consolation prize--a piece of cardboard from a package of pantyhose with a drawing of a tiny, broken heart--that I would understand right then and there, what a mistake I had made. I had broken his heart by being honest with him and now I was to suffer the humiliation of being downgraded to spite art. The trifecta of estrogen, Rodney's mother/aunt/grandmother had of course seen this transaction and the deflated look on my face and started to laugh. They laughed and laughed and then they gave him the thumb's up as I walked into the classroom holding the picture of the tiny, broken heart on the vast white cardboard canvas.
To this day, I don't know why they were going through so many pairs of pantyhose.
You must forgive the fact that the memory of my first interaction with a boy that was not a member of my family is a little bit blurry, but mainly this story is important to tell because it sets the stage perfectly for how my relationships with men would be going forward.
I can recall being transplanted into my kindergarden class a few months into the regular school year. My mother--one of the most incredible people I know--decided that it was time that I go to school. Even if it was a year earlier than most children are scheduled start. And so, as with most other things she set her mind to, she made it happen. The regular school system rejected me but quickly she discovered a loop hole in the system which allowed for children attending private schools to start their educations earlier than others. What this says about the education system, I can only speculate. And so with my new lunchbox in hand and my matronly uniform, and awesome LA Gear high tops, I arrived at my first day of school to the excited welcome of a classroom full of five year olds who were all keen to make the new addition feel welcome.
I certainly can't tell you what any of us spoke about. I'm sure it was earth shattering stuff though. What I can tell you is that pretty quickly into my education, I was faced with the uncomfortable problem of having a boy like me and that I didn't like back. (In subsequent stories, you will see that this trend reverses very quickly). What made the situation infinitely worse and infinitely more adorable was that this boy, Rodney, would show his feelings to me not with words, but instead with art. Every morning when we all arrived at school, Rodney would present me a hand drawn picture of hearts and rainbows in various configurations. Sometimes the hearts would float on clouds, but most of the time they just floated around the rainbows in a haphazard manner.
Here are some other things that I recall about Rodney's tokens of affection: They were always drawn on pieces of cardboard found in pantyhose packages--which I always thought was strange. How much used pantyhose was being generated in his house? He would always present them to me in front of his mother, his aunt and his grandmother who always dropped him off at school together. They would laugh adoringly at the bold gesture of their young son/nephew/grandson while I would accept the gift, feeling slightly confused and embarrassed. He would always follow up on my level of happiness with the gift later in the day to which I would always lie and say that I was extremely happy and that his drawings were the greatest thing ever. I would then throw them in the garbage when I got home, never discussing my new suitor with my family.
The hearts and rainbows continued to pour in for months, or maybe it was weeks, I can't say for certain. What I do remember very clearly though was the day I had to tell Rodney that I was no longer interested in receiving his pantyhose cardboard drawings. It wasn't going to work out between us, we were just going in different directions. It's not you, it's me. He was heartbroken, I'm sure of it. In fact, he was so upset by my vicious words that, after crying a little, he promptly turned his attention to my best friend at the time. He told her I was horrible and they went off to play together.
The next morning, Rodney was delivered by the usual gaggle of women who were watching what was about to happen next with the utmost interest.
As I was standing outside, Rodney walked directly past me and straight to my friend. He smiled at her, and pulled from his bag a piece of cardboard who's origins I can only assume came from a package of pantyhose, and presented to her a hand drawn picture of hearts, rainbows, a sun, some clouds. The picture was much larger than the ones I had become accustomed to receiving over the months, or was it weeks? Very quickly though it would become apparent why her hearts and rainbows were so much bigger than the ones he usually drew for me. It was because when he presented me with my consolation prize--a piece of cardboard from a package of pantyhose with a drawing of a tiny, broken heart--that I would understand right then and there, what a mistake I had made. I had broken his heart by being honest with him and now I was to suffer the humiliation of being downgraded to spite art. The trifecta of estrogen, Rodney's mother/aunt/grandmother had of course seen this transaction and the deflated look on my face and started to laugh. They laughed and laughed and then they gave him the thumb's up as I walked into the classroom holding the picture of the tiny, broken heart on the vast white cardboard canvas.
To this day, I don't know why they were going through so many pairs of pantyhose.
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