I always have the kind of dreams that are so real, I wake up confused in the morning. So, last night I dreamt about Linda (which strangely happens from time to time). We bumped into each other somewhere and while making small talk, she reached out to hold my hand. I pulled away, but I felt sad afterwards and when I woke up, the feeling carried over.
When I got to work, I went straight to my morning routine of Asacol (my stomach medicine) and facebook. By the way, I hate those stupid friend suggestions Facebook gives you. Half the time, I don’t know the person facebook is suggesting. Today, however, was not the case. I knew right away it was Linda. The same anti-internet, anti-facebook Linda, thumbnail-sized holding a cup of coffee, bundled up in the same winter coat she wore while we were in DC together, looking out at the water from the pier of some nameless not-Hawaii location. She wasn’t looking at the camera, which means someone else took it as a candid thinking it would be a nice picture of her. I nearly vomited on my keyboard.
And suddenly, thoughts of her push into thoughts of my own life and the dreams that were suffocated while we were together.
I’m wanting bigger things for my life. I’m bigger than this 9-5 routine. I’m bigger than SEO keywords and carefully marketed text. Through the blinds, I can see the sun peeking through on my desk.
I’m the words that used to move you. I’m the sentences you used to cut out and glue in your journal.
I know Seattle isn’t as rainy as everyone thinks it is, but damn, it’s been rainy since I’ve been here. The other night while changing in to pajamas the lightning crackled through the sky and the thunder roared so loud even my dogs were startled.
It’s weird to be suddenly lifted from my life in Hawaii. Even just wearing winter clothes and a new jacket has made me feel almost like a completely different person.
The Hot Mess called me last night while I was dosing off to sleep. I answered quietly so I wouldn’t wake up anyone else in the house.
“Hey, you okay?” I whispered.
“HI! What are you doing!” She was practically yelling and kind of slurring her words.
“Just lying down. Whatcha up to?” I sat up in bed and turned on the lamp on the nightstand.
“Nothing, just hanging out. I miss you, silly,” she giggled.
“Aww–I miss you too. Where are you now?”
“Out,” she answered. “Wait, lemme go outside. It’s too loud here!”
“Are you having a good time?”
“Yeah, no, I don’t know. My ex called me again.” She sighed. “I don’t know how I feel. It’s like, there’s her…and she would kill me and bury me without even thinking about it. And then there’s you. You, who gets sad when you see a dead cat on the road.”
I laughed nervously. “I’m hoping this is leading somewhere good.”
“I just miss you. And I’m drunk.”
“I miss you too. We can talk more when I get back.”
This week I’m writing from rainy Seattle. My apologies for not mentioning it sooner, it was a last minute idea to come here to visit my parents.
Two days before coming here, the Hot Mess called me and asked if I wanted to grab a drink after work. “We can drink on the beach near my house,” she explained. “The resort has a bar here and they let you drink on the beach.”
So after work, I made the long drive to Turtle Bay, sitting in traffic for nearly an hour and a half. By the time I pick the Hot Mess up to head down to the bar, it’s dark out.
She’s different tonight, a little distant and pre-occupied. She doesn’t reach for my hand during the short drive to the resort parking lot and instead just asks me about my day without really caring about the answer.
“Are you all right?” I asked, while we walked down to the beach.
“It’s been a bad couple of days,” she sighed.
“Go find us a spot to sit,” I said. “I’ll grab us a drink.” I tried to remember what she ordered the last time we shared a drink, but instead settled on one of those tourist-y drinks just because it looked girly. I guess this is one of the disadvantages to NOT being in a serious relationship, we don’t come to each other first for any of this stuff. She had a crappy few days without me even knowing it and strangely, I feel really bad. It’s not that I’m emotionally unavailable, trust me, just that girls like her usually have a long list of people to call before my name comes up.
“Sorry, I have no idea if this is good,” I said, handing her her sweaty drink.
“I’m sure it’s fine–thank you.”
I sat next to her, pushing down into the sand and letting it cover the top of my shoes. “What’s wrong?”
“My ex called me today.”
“Are you two still friends or something?”
“No, it’s complicated.” She took a long sip of her drink before continuing. “We broke up a couple of months ago. We were together for like…two years.”
I could tell this was going to be a long night and that I’d probably need another drink soon.
She continued, “she was really abusive. This one time she got mad at me for interrupting her while she was playing poker with some friends. So she threw one of those ceramic mugs at my head.”
“That’s fucked up,” I said, swishing my cup around. The ice was already starting to melt. “How long since you two broke up?”
She looked embarrassed. “About a month or so.” Which means they had JUST broken up when we met. “She always told me that she’d kill me if I left her. I asked my friend, Jamie, to pick me up so many times and finally Jamie said, ‘next time you call, we’re leaving, I don’t care. You’re not going back to her.’ And that’s what happened.”
“Well, I’m glad you got out of there. There’s really no excuse to hit your significant other.”
“She called me right before you came,” she said. “Saying how much she missed me and how she’d never hit me again.”
“Ah.” I didn’t know how to respond, so instead I asked, “how do you feel about it?”
“I feel kind of drunk,” she laughed, leaning her head on my shoulder. She wrapped her arm with mine, kissed my cheek, and then jumped up. Nearly toppling over, she exclaimed, “I just want to be free!” She started running towards the water, kicking off her shoes in my direction.
“What are you doing?” I called out.
“Swimming!” she yelled back, running into the water. From what I could tell, she was about mid-calf deep and spinning around.
“Come back here! You don’t have a swimsuit on!”
“I don’t care!” she laughed.
“Do you know how to swim?”
“Not really! Come join me!”
I weighed out my options, then slipped off my jacket, shoes, and socks and walked to the shoreline where the sand and black water met. The Hot Mess looked happy, but I swear I could hear her crying. I rolled up my jeans and followed her, the water feeling surprisingly warm.
“Come on,” I said quietly. “Let’s get out.”
She was dancing in the water, her clothes practically soaking wet. “Doesn’t this feel good?”
When I got close enough to see her eyes, I could see she had been crying. Her mascara ran down her soft cheeks and onto her neck. “Come on, let’s get out,” I repeated. “You’re gonna get sick.” I scooped her up in my arms, letting her clothes dampen my own. She leaned her head against my chest, as if counting my breaths.
I put her down near our stuff and I wrapped my jacket around her, then collected the rest of our belongings. When I stood up, she grabbed me by the front of my shirt to kiss me. This time her lips felt heavy. “Thank you,” she whispered.
On my long drive home, I saw a dead cat on the road. I winced and felt like crap until I got home.
Now I’m typing this entry from my old bed in rainy Seattle. I feel far from my life in Hawaii, but part of me wants to call the Hot Mess and ask about her day.
So this morning, I go on facebook to see a friend of mine’s status that reads, “LINDA [last name removed] FOR HAWAII STATE REP!!!” Of course there is only one Linda [last name removed] and the friend posted it is actually a mutual friend, so I shouldn’t be so shocked, but the news still threw me.
We haven’t talked for months. I’ve made small attempts to get in touch with her, but after that apology email I sent to her, she’s never written back to me. I’ve been wondering what I did wrong, which I know is pointless, but it’s been eating at me. And it’s like the more time has passed, the more I need to know what I did wrong. I’m not sure if it’s because I want to be on better terms with her or just because I want to be on better terms with most people.
Anyway, so I tried to be polite and ask my friend when she’s running and all that stuff and just now I got this lengthy mass email about Linda running for office and why I should vote for her. Went over her background and where she went to school and I felt…weird. I was overwhelmed with memories of us: her graduation, visiting her at Georgetown, moving to DC, going to her graduation, and then eventually coming back home. Her background was summarized in like three sentences and it made me feel strange. She had told me once she wanted to run for public office and imagined me in the crowd cheering her on.
At the end of the mass email, it said I could email her at her new, professional email address (I guess it was time to shed coffeeshoplinda, since it was a reference to her being a coffee shop lesbian) and I could send contributions to “Friends of Linda [last name removed]” to a PO box in the same zipcode as where I live.
I apologize for being MIA for the past week or so. Things have been really crazy around here. I just found out that I’ll be moving to California later next year for work. I guess working in porn really does pay because my boss offered to pay for all of my moving expenses if I agree to relocate. It’s been a lot to process.
I moved back to Hawaii over a year ago after following theEx here for law school. Everything for her was here, including her family, and there wasn’t much left for me, except for my old life. And now, it looks like I’ve got a chance to leave, just when the dust is starting to settle for me.
I Won’t Make You Eggs in the Morning is my response to all those cheesy pick-up lines you hear. Sometimes I go on a bad date and sometimes I’m the bad date.
I may not know a lot of things about dating, but I know I’ll never tell a girl I’ll make her eggs in the morning.
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