6:16 p.m. - 2007-04-14
The (Totally Not) Perfect Moment
Did you ever have one of THOSE days?
One of those days when there's a part of you that knows things aren't going to end well?
One of those days that you've been looking forward to for a while, but when you wake up there's something in the air telling you it will not, in fact, have been worth the wait?
One of those days when it is unseasonably cold, and you take that as an omen, somehow?
One of those days when you wake up and see your roommate more naked than you would have preferred at that hour?
One of those days when you go have breakfast tacos and you get a text from someone you've been needing to talk to, so that you arrange to meet up, and you do meet up and you have a really great, interesting talk that is pretty much the exact talk you needed to have, so that now you can move ahead with the project that you were working on and were worried wouldn't get off the ground?
One of those days where that, or something like it, makes you believe that the bad feeling that you had was just in your head?
One of those days where that feeling of "It's going to be okay!" goes away fast?
One of those days where you forget to order something with skim milk and so fixate on that even though you and your friend just talked about how horrible is the hold that the beauty myth has over this country?
One of those days when you eat a big lunch anyway and stress even more?
One of those days when you were supposed to meet up with someone for the first time?
One of those days when you when that first meeting had been postponed, to the point where you were starting to suspect that it would never happen?
One of those days when that suspiscion pretty much made you not want to call the guy at all, because since you hadn't heard from him yet you pretty much took it as a cancellation, but that you figured what the Hell, might as well try him and thus avoid a total misunderstanding, so you call and leave a message and you know, you just KNOW like you Bush would be a two-term president way back in 2000 that you were never going to get that call returned?
One of those days, in other words, where you got stood up?
One of those days when the song you've been listening to, the song that gives you hope, really isn't helping?
One of those days when you try to take comfort in the fact that the sky is blue and the clouds are white and the grass is green and the flowers are yellow, in shades so rich that any picture taken of the moment would be called a fake, a doctored picture, because such colors could never be found in nature, and that actually does make you feel better?
One of those days when you go home and relax on the couch, figuring you'll get over being stood up, when the phone rings?
One of those days when it's not the guy you were supposed to go out with that day?
One of those days when it is, in fact, the guy that you spent the past two years of your life crushing on to no fucking avail?
One of those days when you fixate on the first part of your day because it made you happy, because you want to make sure you sound happy?
One of those days when you notice that, when you talk about the fact that you're considering going back, he mentions reasons why you SHOULD, in fact come back?
One of those days when you write a sentence like that down and you realize that the line in the new Tori song, "Almost Rosey:--"I've been known to delude myself"--feels like it fits for a very, very good reason?
One of those days when you hear the massive silences in between the two of you and you hope against hope that he really does miss you, and he really does wish that you were there?
One of those days when you hear him say that he wishes you would be there for the party he's having next week and part of you wants to jump in the car to surprise him so that you can take him in your arms?
One of those days when you really hate every fucking romantic comedy you've ever seen in your whole goddamn life?
One of those days when you can't even say that you miss him to his face, but you then write it in an email because you are that fucking pathetic?
One of those days when you text your best friend afterwards, and she calls you and asks you what happens, and after dismissing it she then proceeds to talk about her date last night with her boyfriend, where they tried to run in the rain from a bookstore to an ice cream store, and she tripped and fell and he helped her up and then kissed her, and they stood making out in the rain for a few minutes and never made it inside the store?
One of those days when your alleged best friend, knowing full well that you have been 1) stood up and 2) had to deal with your unrequited love interest, says the following statement: "If they ever made a movie of my life, that would totally be something I'd want in there"?
One of those days when a statement like that takes you back, back to a night just before you left California, and you were having dinner with friends, having forgotten about a dinner with another set of friends that included him, and he called and texted you to make sure you were okay, which made you melt, and then you called him later that night and he picked you up in his truck to go get milkshakes from Jack in the Box, after which you sat parked outside your apartment talking, until you went inside to get a book about Jim Henson that was one of your most prized possessions, and you come back out and he's replaced the CD that he had in the car with a Tori Amos CD, and you suddenly realize that this is it, this is a perfect moment, that if the world was instantaneously covered with glaciers you wouldn't mind, that if you could stop time you would, except for the fact that the two of you weren't on a date at all, and that this was just a perfect moment in your head, and when you went back inside you are full of rage and anger because for the first time it really, really hits you that this isn't just a distraction anymore, that you have fallen in love with someone who doesn't love you back?
One of those days where you say to your so-called best friend (if that IS her real name), "Well, seeing as that was EXACTLY what I needed to hear right now, I'm going to take a nap. I'll call you later" and she totally doesn't get that talking about the perfect moment that she had with her boyfriend was just about the cruelest thing she could have done, because you love her and want her to be happy and really, really want things to work out with her boyfriend because you like this guy, but sometimes, just sometimes, you don't need to reminded that you once came really close to that perfect moment only to figure out it was all in your fucking head?
One of those days when you don't feel like working on your project anymore, or going out, or doing anything, pretty much, or talking with friends because none of them are saying anything you want to hear, because it was the kind of day when you wondered if it wouldn't just be better to give up hope, because you've been hoping for a long time, and for all that time you've been hoping you've been alone, while everyone else around you found someone to love and to be loved by, even if it didn't last, and you didn't, and these days, even though you're happier with your life than you've been in years, all that hope does these days is hurt?
One of THOSE days?
Yeah?
Me too.
