Personal Event Horizon

I ventured to TU today to discuss grad school with some of my professors. Since I haven't been to school since graduation in May, I didn't expect it to all feel quite so "normal", but it absolutely did. I legitimately wished I was going to class and had a paper to write. Anyway, instead of writing about the grad school talk like I should, I'll talk about the more interesting part of my day- finally spending hours with my girl, Jen.

Our friendship blossomed our sophomore year when we lived together in a ridiculous apartment that would become both a haven and a hell. We were destined to either rip each other to shreds or fall madly into love odd-couple style. Thankfully it was the latter. Opposites attract and I'm eternally grateful to have that lunatic on my team. Everyone should have a friend like Jen; supportive in fits of insanity, more than kicks my ass when necessary, challenges me, has an absolute heart of gold, and continually brings the best laughs to the table. When I was being Facebook stalked, berated, and painted as the great whore of Babylon by the furious ex-girlfriend of my Italian boyfriend, it was Jen who took it upon herself to send a friend-request and face the beast head on.

Jen is one of the top ten most approachable people in Philadelphia (much to her dismay, as you can imagine), is a bit of an unassuming evil genius, and after three and a half years of friendship, not much surprises me anymore. For one thing, I can always count on her to be undertaking an entertaining new self-assigned "learning task." At one point she made it her mission to become an expert on how to read every human emotion, another time how to make any person do any thing you wanted, how to never be lied to ("EVER"), there was the intensive study and of course diagnosing of, the full range of personalities and the baggage that is attached. If anyone else told me they were embarking on these missions, I would turn around and never look back. But somehow, with her, it honestly just works. Plus it's just really freaky and cool to hear about how it ends up working out in one way or another.

So after hours of catch-up chat today, we finally got to the newest mental expedition, which happens to be a study of the universe. She mentioned things I'm familiar with like blacks holes, and then went into the "event horizon", a new term for me. In the interest of taking it easy on my unscientific mind, she explained it as the area surrounding the black hole, the "point of no return", and something you can travel extensively within, maybe even feeling like you're near to an edge, but in the end "just can't get out of." I don't know if I even let her finish before starting wisecracks about the likeness to the state of my own life.

The conversation changed direction, and eventually went to some sort of playful dual mockery of past partners. While updating each other on which blast from the past had resurfaced, who had gone MIA, and who was still stickin' like glue, I said I thought the course of life would finally keep one favorite permanently out of circulation. Jen immediately burst out laughing, asked who I was kidding, and told me to realize that in ten years I would run into him and end up married. "Event horizon. If it's 10 years or tomorrow, doesn't matter. You're in there and you're not getting out. Somewhere along the line you crossed the point of no return." Shit. She was kinda onto something. Certain people stumble into the orbit of each others lives and despite all foreseeable differences and issues, remain.

Later after hearing of a few recent escapades, in her typical incredulous fashion Jen proclaimed to me and everyone in a five table radius: "What do YOU do to these men?!" Touche. There are no innocents in this game, particularly with my last entry still swimming in my brain. However it would be unfair to stick me in this category solo. Potentially with the influence of the noted earlier psychological endeavors, Jen has amassed her own substantial share of puppy-dog style boyfriends and admirers. This moment of clarity brought on a tidal wave of teasing of which of us had done more ensnaring, and the implications of this perilous state. After all, we are teetering on the edge of an oblivion of nothingness!

Kidding, of course, and everything we say is tongue-in-cheek, but it did provide us with mental fodder. Are we all just swimming around -and conversely, imprisoning others- amidst personal event horizons? I know of a few in particular that I've clocked far too many hours in, then thought myself a free bird, only to wake up one morning light years deep. I don't want this confused with toxic relationships and things like that, although that could certainly be under the same umbrella, but with an undeniable, recurring pull. Combining this cosmic pull with the crossing of a potentially unseen and later non negotiable barrier, and it does become a state that mirrors what any relationship, for better or worse, can become. Over the years I have mentally likened two of my relationships to two scenarios of human and nature colliding: that unsettling National Geographic style video clip of a giant moose who has been shot but just refuses to go all the way down, staggering and fighting against inevitability, and at the very least to that little cactus on the window sill in my parents' kitchen. That poor thing has had periods of decent care, left to shrivel, been flooded and engorged only to shrivel again, yet again bloated in a last ditch attempt to save it, only for the cycle to continue. Has this just been the event theory at work? That damn moose has gotten up and run off with only the slightest hitch in its step and the cactus, which spent all of spring looking more like a raisin, sprouted a hot pink flower at the start of summer. Mai dire mai, because we're all on the edge, anyway.

A Lesson in Playing Nice ....Via Lust

Things are never what they seem and I find myself continually surprised at the lasting footprints we are capable of leaving on another person’s trail of life. That could be one of the single greatest things that my travels have taught me so far; the amount of time physically knowing or spent with a person can be so brief, yet meaningful in its own right. Never say never and nothing is ever, ever cut and dry. For better or worse.

A mistake or maybe even sweetness of youth is that we often believe so strongly in the finality of our decisions, aspirations, and connections. Sometimes the thought of these things ending, or worse yet, that we may have been wrong in some way, can really knock our cocky little socks off. Shortly after my “yes-there-are-a-million-problems, but if this is not forever, I will certainly die” relationship finally came to its painfully, brutally, excruciatingly long end, I found myself in the company of another quite interesting character. I had been so caught up in my desire of one person, who to be fair I did share genuine mutual love with, and the notion of “forever”, that I had unknowingly closed myself off. While no great affection remains or ever even existed for the interesting character that followed, there is an unmistakable endearment tied to the memory.

He was a friend of a friend and nothing more than an exaggerated blip on my radar, but in retrospect, left an impression that deserves recognition. They were visiting for an event in the city where I was living at the time and probably not more than 30 hours were spent together in total. We had a wonderful night full of talk and laughter, and at the end of it, without invitation he quietly slipped between the sheets of my oversized and very uncomfortable Italian bed. This was the first of several cross-roads. Because nothing is ever truly simple, I had to think about the fact that he and my former love knew each other. We still care for each other deeply, and I know his honor is everything. They were even friends themselves. In fact, he had come up during several conversations that evening. What a nightmare.

While it isn’t something I’m proud of, I’m honest enough to admit that I was lonely. He was lovely in his own right and somehow was both the opposite and reminiscent of the man I was missing. Mentally I threw my hands up in the air and decided to let him stay. One of my most distinct memories about that short time together was that he insistently requested a bedtime story. He had been so overtly masculine and straightforward that it caught me a bit off guard.

The details have grown very fuzzy, but I told him one about a girl that was traveling the world; forever on the go, on an eternal quest, always running and exploring. I readily admit that while not pre-meditated, it was a self indulgent tale that enthralled my listener. Maybe it’s that Italian flair for the dramatic, but he couldn’t get enough. Cheesy as ever, he quickly told his own tale of a boy that was desperate to be apart of this girl’s tale; “even if only for a night.” How annoying it is to now realize that he succeeded. He is right here in black and white.
At that moment, I found myself at the brink. It was identical to that childhood moment of stopping for an instant before canon-balling into the swimming pool. “Is the water too cold? Should I ease in one toe at a time? Do I want this man on my mind for months?” I didn’t think “Do I want to be on his mind for months?” but I should have. Realizing what I do now, it would’ve only been fair. But I wasn’t thinking about the implications of again being the mysterious girl in the foreign land, and tapping into a weakness of the seemingly macho Italiano. So while it’s certainly not a bad position to be in, and equally advantageous, it does have a way of weighing on the conscience. I was fresh out of what turned into a difficult long-distance relationship with my former lover and couldn’t emotionally take a repeat. Frankly, at that moment I was exhausted but felt the pull. Goddamn it. So while I eventually drew the line before the point of no return -I do have a touch of class- enough had transpired to make it memorable.

As I recall, I had a torturous night’s sleep but relatively awkward-free morning. We spent the day together with friends and had a nice, affection-free time. Goodbyes were painless. There was a bit of limited interaction in the weeks to follow, some that implied he was effected more than I realized, but nothing major. I continued on my travels without a second thought.

So with all that being said, I was honestly surprised when he popped up online a few months later, chatting up a storm. After a bit of easy talk, he began speaking directly with confusion and hurt that was entirely unexpected, wanting to know why I hadn’t reached out. Eventually he stated simply “Just please, don’t disappear again.... Okay?” I agreed, felt a little guilty, and then briefly found myself wondering what could have been if a.) circumstances were different and b.) I hadn’t been so quick to dismiss it as a mutually meaningless fling. I hadn’t thought I was “disappearing” because truthfully, I never thought of myself as there at all. I certainly don’t have any heartbroken regrets about what happened, but it has made me assess the desire to mark everything into its own neat and tidy package and never look back. In the end for him, it wasn’t the cut and dry, “fun for just a night” rapport. Eventually he did simply slip off into the wrinkles of time and space and c’est la vie, I suppose. Although it would be callous not to admit that I still think of him fondly.

In the end, the experience served to painlessly reiterate a lesson that hadn’t really sunk in the first time around, and by chance I had forgotten in the hurricane that my former love affair had become. For me, that lesson has been to not be excessively proud and deny genuine emotions out of fear. It’s its own long story, but my famous prior love was almost over before it began for that very reason. I believe this is partly due to the fact that it’s unfairly drilled into the minds of young woman that our male counterparts are only after one thing, and once the chance to attain it vanishes in some way or another, so do they. I, probably a bit more of a feminist than your average gal, am now admitting that I just don’t think that’s the overarching truth.

So while savoring the traces others leave with us, we can’t underestimate the bits of ourselves we leave behind. There is an inherent responsibility we hold to protect or at best try not to harm those we come into contact with, and for me that is steadily accepted with age. I thought my first Italiano continually pouring his heart out after I’d gone was an extreme rarity, but here was another one bleeding his heart out with an ocean of distance. Everything is not what it first seems and there’s a time and place to give the benefit of a doubt. Although maybe they’re just both incurable romantics. Maybe I am, too.

Trulli Dreamin'

I have strong professional dreams. I can say unabashedly, in the true dreamer fashion, that I want to help make a difference in the world of ethnic conflict. But there’s something else that always swims in the back of my head, after all of my professional aspirations have come to fruition.

My other dream. My "when I'm an old lady" dream.

Finally, finally I will live in a trullo outside of Martina Franca, deep in the valley cut by that single twisty road. My donkeys and a little bay mare will graze contentedly in their field marked with stone fences and a few German Shepherds will be running around the yard. A breeze will ruffle through the circular little house and breathe life into the stones. My creaky old lady bones will happily rise to the occasion for a trot through the olive groves with the southern Italian beating down on my face and further bleaching my long, gray braid.

I will smoke all of the clove cigarettes I desire, as repayment to my younger self for abstaining. I hope they’ll still tingle on my tongue the same way. In the evening, frizzantino Pugliese will be in a glass on the porch table as I look out over a notebook at the animals. It'll be just fine if they're my only company. Writing to my heart’s fulfillment, I’ll feel content gazing at my mini kingdom, knowing that I’ve earned it.

Resurrecting the Blog

A lot has happened in the past seven months and writing remains my catharsis. I decided to start my Roma blog back up as a means of both processing and sharing what I’ve learned from these events:

My best friend was reduced to a box on my bedroom floor marked “MID-ATLANTIC VETERINARY CLINIC.” I’ve only opened it twice since it arrived six months ago, but inside there are five braids each of the most perfect mane and tail I’ve ever seen, her black leather halter that was a gift for our 8th anniversary, and the hunter green cotton lead rope that I desperately pulled on, tears streaming down my face, begging her not to die. Both the halter and lead have tags marked “ELLA” that I remember the staff of the clinic slipping on when she came off of the trailer. I miss her every single day.

I graduated college and decided to start the grad school hunt. (Ethnic) Conflict Resolution, here I come.

Three incredible months were spent playing, laughing, swimming, drinking, sun bathing, eating, writing, loving, fighting, and crying in Italy with Kelli. We spent time with irreplaceable old friends and made priceless new ones. Some nights were spent in the lap of luxury and others we were homeless. It was truly fantastic. Despite all of its absurdity and frustrations, my heart will forever sleep in Italian streets, staring up at that bella palla of a moon.

A few weeks after arriving home, refreshed and reasonably ready to start my life, I got sick. My hair fell out. Within weeks, 2/3 of my trademark wild mane was staring back at me from my shower drain. I saw the worried look on my mother’s face as I constantly repeated myself. I felt inexplicable and indescribable exhaustion. Worst of all, my mind was a mess of fog I couldn’t make heads or tails of. Total zombie. Literally countless doctors visits, rounds of blood tests, pokes, prods, and getting far too much time in at Doylestown Hospital later, it’s still a mystery. Abnormal test results (including a severe b12 deficiency) and no discernible reason as to “why”, but the quest continues. Although, there is finally some improvement. Case in point: I can string a sentence together again.

Roma, you are my favorite lover, and I am so grateful. You always do the best you can with my fragmented heart.