Jay Elias | You can take it with you

"I have wasted Time, and now doth
Time waste me"
- Richard II

2002-11-20- 11:26 a.m.

It Just Rains Because It Can

This weekend, in doing a favor for a friend of mine, I found myself back in the neighborhood of my former college for the first time since 1998. And around two in the morning on Saturday night, Rachel and I made a trip to the campus so I could show it to her.
It seemed so much smaller and more desolate than when I went there; although perhaps the heavy sleet and the late hour could explain that. Still, I could hardly believe just how small it seemed. Could this really have been a place where I lived and was content for three years? Could I really have made a home for myself in this tiny, silent place, sometime after my youth in our nation’s capital and before my adulthood in non-stop Manhattan?
What then dawned on me is just how little it really takes to be happy. I had a place there to call home. A nice girlfriend who I loved and who loved me. Good, caring, loving friends whom I loved and cared about in return. A few nice places to go to eat and drink, places that would flunk a Zagat survey but were enough to give us places to go. One multiplex. One small mall. Two video stores. An all-night Dunkin’ Donuts. Not much, maybe, but enough to keep me from ever wanting a script for Zoloft.
Like most urban types, I have a distaste for the small-town life. When I’m looking for a quick lunch, I go to Cosi and not McDonald’s. I feel pity for the legions of girls who buy their prom dresses at Wal-Mart, and not because it is cheap but because it is the nice store in town. I fret over the idea that there are places where Appleby’s is a fancy dinner spot. But I can see another side too. No one there waits outside the bar for an hour for the bouncer to decide they are handsome and well dressed enough to get in. None of them make dinner reservations a month in advance to get a table at the nicest restaurant. None of them pay seven hundred dollars for a sweater so they can carry it out in a Bendel’s bag. Perhaps they know something all these sophisticated New Yorkers don’t about how to focus on the parts of life that are actually living.
Two days before my trip to my former school, I received an out-of-the-blue e-mail from Lynn, and not a quick note but a quite lengthy missive. She rambles on for a while, and at one point even talks about all the positive things I can hope to bring to my future relationships. Here, in her words, are the things I have to offer another human being.
“Loyalty (unless you cheated on me and I never new, ha ha)
Emotional Depth (which will probably be most attractive to someone who needs help in that department, so be careful)
Fearlessness/Flexibility (I know you're stubborn as fuck when it comes to some things, but still, you never seemed like you were penned in by some image of your life and your future - in other words - I remember a certain willingness to be selfless on big issues and sort of step off a cliff . . . I think you would definitely jump in front of traffic if the need arose.)
Now, remember, that not everyone will appreciate these wonderful traits! In fact, they can be overlooked or even scoffed at by someone who doesn't quite get it. But if that ever happens to you, I want you to know that I do. I get it. Maybe this will help - even if we never really talk or see each other. Somehow, I've suddenly remembered this stuff. I think we're more similar than I ever realized.”
Is there comfort in the idea that someone I haven’t spoken to in three years is finding a way to see the silver lining in me?
I took Rachel on a pretty standard tour of my old campus. I showed her my favorite overlook onto the Hudson River, my old dorm, and so on. And then, as we were leaving, we passed by the parking lot next to the dining hall that I never went to (I think I still have about 90 unused meals on my student card) and I made us pull over. From there, we walked in the falling sleet to a site I had nearly forgotten about: the SHG Memorial Rugby Pitch.
It doesn’t happen that often anymore, but standing there, I thought for a minute about how much I missed him. I missed him in all the usual ways, thinking about the things we used to do together and how I don’t have anyone anymore who I do those things with; how I never play fantasy football or spend a night laughing at straight to video comedies, or try to deep-fry chicken fingers in a saucepan. But then I missed him in a new way; I want to know what he would think of all the things I’m up to now, of how he’d get along with Rachel or mock me for being so afraid sometimes of how this whole life thing is going to work out. And I realized how fate had robbed me not only of the friendship that I had but of the chance to say and do so many things that I couldn’t even of imagined when I lost him.
Rachel stood there with me in the frozen rain and held my hand. How strange it must have been for her. There she was, standing at a place she’d never known existed, commemorating the passing of someone she’d never known. She squeezed my hand and asked if I was okay. I pulled her to me, and felt the crunch of our embrace, the sort of crunch that comes when you are both bundled up in winter coats and sweaters and gloves and the rain is freezing drip patters on your chest. And then I did something really stupid.
I just held her silently for a moment. My eyes got far away. This place isn’t a happy place for me anymore. Everything I loved here I lost, a long time ago. There were chances, back then, for me to say the things I really felt. I missed them. I hope I’ve learned from those missed opportunities, that I am a better person for the lessons I have had. Sometimes, I can even convince myself that my life is better now that it would have been had I done the right thing back then, that perhaps the mistakes I made were important in building a person prepared to do the right thing and to be happy.
But deep down inside, I’m not convinced we really ever learn anything. Sometimes, I feel like we don’t ever really change, no matter what lessons we garner from our mistakes. We just find new ways of doing the same old thing, new justifications to not say what we know we want to. Standing there holding Rachel, I look out at the goalposts and I think of what SHG would think, knowing that I’m no better for having lost him.
I keep my eyes fixed on the goalposts, and I say to Rachel, “There is something that you should know. I love you.” She squeezes me a little tighter, and a moment passes, and I hope SHG isn’t ashamed of me.
Another moment passes. Rachel’s voice speaks to me faintly. She says to me, “I know.”
In that moment, I know she isn’t going to say that she loves me too. The thing is, I already knew that, I know she doesn’t love me. And I wish like hell I hadn’t said it, but not because she doesn’t love me. I wish I hadn’t said it because I wish it weren’t true, and I wish my love was more difficult to purchase. I want to believe that my love has greater value than I suppose it does. And I want to believe I don’t love her, because I ruin everything that I love and cherish most, and I’m not ready to ruin this, not yet, please god, not yet, I’m happy, and I want to be that way just a little bit longer.
She says to me, “I’m really happy with you, and with us. But I’m just not there yet.” And I tell her that I know that. I want to get back in the car now. This place isn’t a happy place for me anymore. There are too many shadows here. Too many pasts that I cannot grasp and too many potential futures that I cannot forget. I want to go back to the hotel, I realize. There is something redemptive about the millions of blank hotel rooms in this country. Something about the way they are sterile and anonymous when I check in and the knowledge that when I leave, every memory of my passing will be erased. Just a tiny room in the world that is devoid of a past and where the future is still a blank slate. And we disappear, into the blankness of a dark country road at night.

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Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15
Like Water Under Bridges - 2003-09-08
Jesus On The Dashboard - 2003-08-13
An Administrative Announcement - 2003-08-11
Don't Worry, It's Coming - 2003-08-02

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