Grantsville, PA

Dad pulled in to Brooklyn just before 2 p.m., and after finding a parking space and exchanging a bear hug, we headed to La Bagel Delight for a sandwich.

Bellies full, and drizzly rainy grossness falling from the sky, we opted out of staying the night in New York, and opted in to packing the van to get the hell out of dodge.

Photo by smalltowngirl

Several trips down my four flights of stairs later, my room stood empty, the moving van sat full, and Dad and I prepared to sit in traffic on our way out of the city.

Two of my roommates, Bill and Suzanne, got home just before Dad and I were leaving. We spent a few minutes saying our "goodbye for now"s, we gave each other hugs, and they stood on the stoop to watch as Dad and I drove away.

South Oxford Street Gang

Photo by PapaG

As we made our way uptown toward the Lincoln Tunnel, Dad got a quick peek at Macy's, and I convinced him to make a minor detour so that he could say he'd seen Times Square.

At about the same time this afternoon, my mom looked out the window to see eleven deer in the backyard. She snapped several pictures, and blogged about it, saying "NY = 0; MO = 1".

Wrapping our way back down 9th Avenue and over on 39th street, we entered the Lincoln Tunnel.

When we exited the tunnel, New York City was behind us, and once it was, I didn't look back.

Breaking Things to Fix Them

We began talking. I apologized for snapping at you during brunch. You accepted my apology. Things seemed okay, but I had a lot on my mind. We were sitting on the white couch, and you reached out for me. I needed to talk, not to be held. Even now, when you aren't here to hold me, I don't regret that decision.

An hour later, I took your keys off my keychain and set them quietly on your book shelf. You walked out of the apartment as I started to gather the things of mine that had gradually accumulated in your space. I wanted to slip as gently and quietly as I could out your front door, and I wanted the hurt to stop hurting. I didn't want to leave any traces of myself behind to haunt you.

I thought that maybe you were leaving - that you would take a walk and I'd be gone when you came back. A moment later the door creaked open, and you appeared with two sturdy shopping bags. It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized you'd taken them from the stack someone in your building had left in your entryway. I packed my things.

I said to you what I wanted to say. You were standing next to the radiator. You looked like someone had crushed you when I said what I did. I guess that it really wasn't until that moment that you realized how I felt about you. You had already made your decision though, and I needed to go.

You put my bags in the backseat of the cab, and then you wrapped your arms around me. I can still smell the leather of your coat. I could not hug you back. The heaving sobs rose from deep inside me - from caverns of emotions that I thought would be foverever closed. You had opened them up, and now they echoed my heartbreak.

I sat in the cab and watched you walk down the sidewalk defeated, shoulders slumped and arms hanging low. I thought to myself, "I love you," and I asked the driver through choked sobs, "why do men do this?" even though I knew that man didn't do this.

I had prayed for two weeks that our future would be made clear to me. Saturday night we laughed and teased and watched movies, and we fell asleep happy. The next day, I watched those words come out of your mouth, and I heard the tone in  your voice. I think that you were as surprised to hear yourself say those words as I was.

I feel as if someone has punched me in the heart. Looking back at my life, though, I have never had a bruise that didn't heal. And the healing that you offered my heart, Jeff, far exceeds the hurt that you've left in it. Thank you for that.

The 60th percentile

Photo credit: Smalltowngirl, Taiwan 2007

Bon Iver creeps out of my stereo and cars pass quietly down the street outside my open window. I'm in pajamas and glasses, thinking back over the past week, and thinking forward to a future that's looking better than it was a few days ago.

Doubt covers me some days, suffocating me until what started out coming in from the outside seeps through my skin and resides inside of me, infiltrates every thought, and dominates my perspectives on my life.

I read recently that more than 40th of Americans actively dislike their jobs.I was in the 60th percentile of Americans. I'm not used to being so middle-of-the-road statistically.

***

As a kid, I'd get sick to my stomach when the Missouri Mastery Achievement Test would come each spring.

The teacher would seperate our desks so that we could not see each other's exams. She (all of my teachers were women) would explain, using white chalk drawings on a black board, how to properly fill in the little multiple choice bubbles.

She would also make sure that every had two sharpened No. 2 pencils ready on their desks. She would open her copy of the thin paper test booklet, and she would read the test instructions to the class.

I think it was in the very first year that I had to suffer through these exams that I was diagnosed with stomach ulcers for the first time. I would sit, listening to the teacher read the directions, and my stomach would burn. Butterflies would creep from my tummmy into my chest and arms, leaving my fingers tingly and leaving me doubtful that I'd earn an acceptable score again this year.

When my test scores would arrive in the mail weeks later I was almost always in the 98th percentile. How then, at this stage in my life, have I found myself in the 60% of Americans who actively dislike their work?

***

For the last several weeks, I've hoped to understand where my life was meant to go in both the romantic and the professional departments. Doubt had crept in, and as usual, it was suffocating. I looked inward enough to know that I could use some help, and then I looked upward to ask for it.

This week, I was presented with a new professional opportunity that I think would put me back up in the 90th percentile of job satisfaction. And by contrast, decisions were made for me in the romantic department that seem to have answered my own doubts and questions.

Bon Iver eases his was smoothly out of my stereo, and a yawn spreads through my jaw and chest. My eyes water just a bit, and my eyelids droop. Before I close my eyes and fall into sleep, I smile because I can already see the 40th percentile behind me getting smaller as I walk away.