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.