The Wake, Part I

Yeah Yeah, She's the One -- #184

My father's uncle died several days ago, and today in the bright chilly air we lowered his body to rest eternally in the cold earth. Funerals do little to move me. What was once an old man I hardly knew, save for his warmth and kindness, was now a decorated husk shrouded in sadness, serving to be little more than a neglected prop in an otherwise congenial family holiday gathering. In a sense, he could not have picked a better time to die. This was death expected and understood. During the wake I scanned the small room of the funeral home, looking for something that would mark this occasion with significance. This just felt like another funeral, and I shrugged my shoulders with disappointment. Until I got home, and realized that I couldn't fall asleep.

I wasn't thinking about death all night, quite the opposite, in fact. I was thinking about life. In three weeks I'm moving hundreds of miles away to start a new job in my new career, in a city with which I have barely a connection. When asked by one of his cousins yesterday as to why I took the job, my father jokingly said, "Because they offered it to him." He's right, unfortunately. I took the job because I desperately wanted to work, and I had zero reason for why I would say no.

Needless to say, I'm having second thoughts. Once you make any major life-altering decisions, I think we almost expect that cherubs will descend with golden horns to lead you down a gilded and exalted path toward every subsequent choice made. Angels have yet to descend. Potential landlords don't return my phone calls, and the few that do refuse me tenancy thanks to the 70-pounds of lab fur to your right. Instead of wine and roses, my employers send me a cryptic benefits packet that is more undecipherable than Finnegan's Wake. Family and friends are more concerned with our ever-populating world of newborns than to react with anything more than brief congratulatory praise for taking thirty-four years to finally get a "real job." I'm on an island, scared shitless about what I'm about to face, and this is nothing more than a blip on the December radar.

Scared shitless may be an exaggeration. It's a nervous excitement that, when I want to remain grounded about the whole thing, gives way to calmness because, after taking a deep breath, I've been through this before. The enthusiasm gives way to relaxed anticipation, which gives way eventually to boredom. I stress about finding an apartment, knowing full well that in three weeks time I will be sitting in the same four-walled apartment I've bounced around in my entire life, playing Guitar Hero by myself and wondering if there is something more productive I should be doing at the moment. (Note: There isn't.) It all works out and normal reaction to change and blah blah blah. But that still doesn't explain why I'm up all night, thinking about my ex-girlfriend.

How's that for a non sequitur? Can I get a do-over?

There are things here that I'm not saying, things unspoken that people seem to understand. I'm going away alone. ALONE. Like in that Heart song, only the opposite, I guess, if you listen to the lyrics. I don't have a girlfriend or a significant other (um, sort of ... entry for another day, perhaps). And when you're faced with this debilitation, it seems to radiate outward from you and affect everyone around you. People begin to seek other people for you, as if you're a dying man needing an organ transplant. And when I express reservations about moving away, concerned mostly about what my social life will entail, what people really think I'm saying is, "How am I going to find a girlfriend up there?" I laugh at that notion, because it's the last thing going on in my mind. But seriously, how am I going to find a girlfriend up there?

People with insomnia spend their awake-in-the-dark time asking themselves hypotheticals. They place themselves in pretend situations, or re-place themselves in previous real situations, and then imagine an ideal story for how the scene will play. My story for the evening involved me answering the question, "When are you going to settle down?" It seems valid. In one way or another, someone is bound to ask you this in some form or another. I don't have a stock answer, usually just shrugging my shoulders and offering a witty one-line retort like "Fuck that" or "Never, motherfucker." But in my make-believe land of insomnia playwriting, here is the answer I would like to say.

(Oh! Usually when the scene is played, I'm having some boozy night out with my hip married friends in a dark New York bistro. For the record, I've had exactly one night like this in the past five years, and it was an absolute trainwreck of an evening that featured several hours of baby photos exchanged and "Remember that time..." conversations. Married people might as well just put a fence spike through their beloved heads.)

Hip Married Friends Holding Hands While Sipping Red Wine: "Why haven't you settled down and made an honest man of yourself, you rakishly handsome devil?"

Me (white dress shirt opened two buttons to expose chest, sporting amount of hair I had about ten years ago): Do you want to know why I can't get married? Do you really want to know?

Friends (leaning closer, in tandem): Yes.

Me: About a year ago while I was at school, one night my little social circle decided to drift away from our home-base and head out to the trendy tourist town for a night of upscale drinking. I was there with the girl I was dating at the time, or maybe we were just friends at the point -- it was a comfortable relationship, whatever it was. But it was never going to work out because I was always thinking about someone else. The "someone else girl" was my best friend, stunning and amazing and the type of person that I want to spend the rest of my life with. Only she wasn't feeling it, you know? And I know that she wasn't feeling it, and I'm beyond the point where I'm going to chase windmills in my love life. Anyway, here I am, out drinking and having fun with one girl while secretly pining for another, both relationships disastrous at inception. And as we're getting ready to leave, I turn from the bar ... and I saw her. She was dancing on the dance floor maybe five feet from me. She had black curly hair and dark eyes, and when she saw me she smiled. It was like in a movie -- no, it was a movie! It was the scene when the guy sees the girl across the crowded room and every bit of pain and disappointment in his life suddenly makes sense because it was all leading up to this one moment. I was just frozen. Not like scared or anything, but more amazed because I didn't think I was capable of having things like this happen anymore. And it was there with her too, I know it was. And she was dancing with her friends, but suddenly she cocked her head slightly, like she was asking, "Are you coming out here or not?"

Friends (riveted): AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

Me: The girl I was dating grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me out of the bar. We went home. I never saw her again.

Friends: We don't get it. What does that have to do with getting married?

Me: Well I don't want to be attached to anyone that is going to pull me away when I finally find that girl again.

END SCENE

I'll finish the rest of the story some other time. The sun is up and I have to start my day. I'm writing every day in this blog, even if the entries suck.