A Crush

Image from here

On the days I know we're going to see each other I am all happy and smiley, unable to concentrate and fluffing up my hair as if he were watching. I think about what I'll wear, wondering what he'll notice while trying not to look like I dressed up for him. I repeat to myself: Be cool. Do not give away that you like him! That is the death of cool. Must keep cool alive.

I leave for class so excitedly that I forget my books. I realize it when I'm almost there. Of course, I'm me, so I'm half an hour early, because I always plan for the unexpected and I am never, ever late. So I have time to go home and get my books and then get to class on time. No, not on time. Early. I am always early.

He is always late.

He rushes into class, finds his seat quickly, and our eyes don't meet. My heart sinks. He is only two chairs away, though, and so I know I will not hear a word the teacher says. I am busy memorizing the side of his arm and shoulder. I need to memorize him so that I can think about him when we're not in class.

Of course it's in the two seconds that I am distracted by something else that he looks at me. When I look back he's waiting for my gaze. In my state of unpreparedness, I break out a huge smile with a half-giggle, complete with a pulling my hair behind my ear move. So not cool.

But he returns the smile. With a wink. A light wink. Just one of those, "Hey there," winks that really attractive men give away for free. I blush. Death of cool. 

Of course we have a group activity in class today, and of course we are in the same group. This is good, because I know more than he does about what we're asked to do and can impress him. He is impressed. He touches the side of my arm to look at my notes and my legs almost splash everywhere; they turn to liquid so fast.

We find excuses to talk to each other and I am all smiles and eye-glows. I have lots of time to memorize his scent and the warmth I feel when I stand close to him. Time goes by too fast; it always does when you're alive.

Class is over. We are free to go. He has to stay behind for a few minutes. I desperately look for a reason to be hanging out in the hallway waiting for him, so we can walk a bit together, but I cannot find one. Without a reason, I would go from being charming to obvious. And obvious is so not cool.

I leave.

But I have so many new things about him that I've memorized, so many new moments to replay in my head all the time; I have fresh material to be giddy-smiley about for days.

The effect of a crush, I've learned, stands the test of time, cynicism, and experience.

I am 26 years old. I am 16 years old. I am 6 years old. I am 46 years old. And my smile is exactly the same.

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I'll have a guest post going up today on the blog JUST LIVE LOVE LAUGH; be sure to check for it!

What Could Have Been

I see you there, standing on the front porch of our house- a house we painted ourselves-  with our baby in your arms and our toddler hanging on your legs. The smell of the breakfast we cooked together still hangs in the air around the house. I put my hand on the small of your back, our bellies touch, I kiss you on the lips, and you wish me luck on my audition. Our hands touch for a few moments; the insides of our palms say I love you to each other. I walk past our peonies and get into our car, and I look at you again, standing there with our kids, in front of our home. You look perfect; you are and always have been perfect. 

This is exactly what we always wanted. The comfortable relief of having it is palpable.

This is the world I escape to when I’m in line at the post office, when the dairy products in the grocery store all look the same to me, when I’m in the subway and the world surrounding me has too many details for me to take in, and when I’m alone in my bed at night, staring out into the darkness trying desperately not to ever forget what his chest felt like next to my cheek.

It is the world of What Could Have Been. It is make-believe and fantasy; it does not exist.

I know I must let it go. I do not want to—I want to hold on to this world forever, I want to return to it many more times, but I know I cannot.

So, I am walking away today. I do not know how long it will take before it is out of sight, or if it ever will be, but I am starting my journey now. I am leaving it behind. I am leaving him behind, along with all my dreams of what could have been. It is a difficult and slow walk. I often look back and see him there, standing tall and handsome, and I want to run back, fling my arms around him, kiss his perfect face, and bury my head into his chest. I want to say, Let me stay! Let me live here a little longer! Don’t let me go just yet!

I know I have to go now, though. 

Saying good-bye to him and to the life I had created for us in my head is really difficult and painful. I am leaving because I have to, not because I want to. We cannot be, and what I dreamed up for us will not come true; I must accept that and I must move on. 

It’s not going to be us this time around; it’s not going to be you and me. It’ll be you and someone else; me and someone else. We will live separate lives, love other people, and become the people we are meant to be, without each other.

For a while, it was a path that corresponded with reality. I saw our lives running their course, together, for the rest of our time here. I am walking away today, but a part of me walked down that path with him and will always live there, in that pretty house with a front yard, where our kids grew up in a home made of love. It is beautiful, because dreams are beautiful. 

I let it be beautiful for now. I know that one day we’ll look back and this dream will have faded; we'll be lost in the past, upstaged by other stories, and our paths will seem to have just barely touched. 

It is sad, because reality is sad. 

Saturday Silence

image from here

How comforting it is, a morning free of my alarm clock, of my upstairs neighbor's heels, of rushing, of make-up, of nice clothes, of to-do lists, of everything that is every other day.

Saturday mornings are silent. They are full of relief and simplicity.

The day does not impose itself on me, but rather patiently waits for me outside. When I am ready, I can go out into it. And it'll be warm, home-like, and youthful in its promises of lasting happiness.

On Saturdays, I dream of a pretty little house on a field, a waterfall nearby, and a love story to go with it. I am poetic on Saturdays. I am young and romantic.

I am simpler than I am on other days. I need less.

A cup of coffee and the newspaper are enough. Productivity is measured in how little is done.


Saturdays are the recess hour of adulthood, the freedom made sacred by its scarcity.


Shall we go out and play?

image from here.

The World In My Head

I don't remember how old I was when I read "The Little Princess", but I remember it had a profound impact on me for the rest of my life. The protagonist, Sarah, was a rich girl who was sent to a boarding school that was strict as hell, but she brought the place to life with her imaginative stories, which the girls would gather to hear. When her father died in the war, however, Sarah became a servant at the boarding school. She survived life's sudden harshness by returning to her stories, by living in her imagination, by transporting herself far far away from her reality.

Luckily I was never sent to boarding school nor did my father die in a war, but certainly- like most people- I had to survive the events that, one by one, took childhood away from me. And after I read "The Little Princess", I became my own version of Sarah, living in my imagination as often as necessary. It didn't take much to send me there- I was an extremely sensitive child- and my mind soon had a world of its own.

In my head lived endless possibilities. When my parents fought- which was always and never nicely- I could go be the most beautiful girl in the world, a princess, who lived somewhere beautiful and safe, where I could walk through jungles with giant waterfalls and have pic-nics with koalas. When I would see starving children my own age begging for money on the streets of Sao Paulo, I could disappear and go to a ball where I could wear long romantic lilac gowns and have curls in my hair and satin gloves. When teachers lost their patience with my shyness, I didn't have to sit through a lecture about social skills, I could go off and run through vast green meadows while the wind gently hit my face. I could do anything. I could be anyone. It was intensely freeing.

I would say I lived in my imaginary world quite often, and I would say it served me well sometimes. But it also worked against me. I was so used to detaching myself from anything difficult that I didn't know how to be present anymore, even when I needed to be. I couldn't focus, it became difficult to study for tests, I felt like a bad friend most of the time because I didn't really know how to listen, and I didn't know how to sit through or with any kind of pain. If I had grown up in the U.S., I probably would have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and given drugs. I don't know if the drugs would have helped me though, because I was very attached to my imaginary world. But by the time I got to high school, I recognized it was getting in the way, and I was afraid I would soon be failing all my classes.

I went to an English teacher I kind of liked and told her of my "problem". I explained that my imagination would get the better of me, even in my favorite subjects, like English, and I couldn't bring myself back down to earth once I was off in lala land. She suggested that every time I start to drift off, I take out a notebook and write down where my thoughts were going as though I were writing a fiction story. I was a little disappointed to hear her say that- I was hoping she would just tell me I was normal and that it would pass. But I was desperate to find some solution before I simply failed out of school, and so I took on her idea.

You may have guessed what happened. The girl who lived inside her head brought her head to paper, and a writer was born. Journals upon journals were filled with stories, observations, images, poems, thoughts, essays, dreams and, ultimately, my pains. And once I had a place to put my thoughts, they started to get out of the way.

I still have a tendency to detach from anything painful, but I catch it quite quickly and try to breathe through it instead of run away from it. I still write things down though, but I don't have to, I can usually focus when I need to. I have learned that our painful experiences are our fuel. That which makes us feel weak in life can be our weapon in creative outlets. A paintbrush, a pen, a piano- those are all important tools, but without our life, without our pain, without our willingness to access it, we can not create.

I am really grateful to have had Sarah, that wonderful imaginative little princess, for helping a shy, overly-sensitive child find a world she could live in, then to have found the teacher who guided me towards my voice, and now to have the courage, every day, to face the reality of every moment, with a present mind and a working imagination. The World in my Head is not so much an escape now, but rather a way to understand reality and generate a creative force which gives me power, freedom, and presence.