My job is to make sure the driver doesn’t fall asleep. That’s why I’m here, even though I’m very tired, too. I watch him out of the corner of my eye. Watch where his hands are on the wheel. Watch if they’re slipping or shifting. He doesn’t like small talk, so I don’t try.
The radio only comes to life when we’re waiting at a stoplight. Short soft bursts that aren’t static, but aren’t really anything else either. Sometimes, I think I hear Patsy Cline or Buddy Holly in them, so I pretend we are driving into the past. Each hill is another year. Back, back, back. The roadside signs are faded, so I pretend it’s from decades of baking heat or maybe a great flood that made all their colors bleed together. If I could, I would roll down the window and trail my hand through the night air, but now it’s too dark and the heater is on.
When we reach the highway, we are back in our time. Halfway home. I turn the radio up a little louder to keep us awake. This time, it really is static.
Some things get better as others get worse.
I am better at saying goodbye. When I’m distracted, I mumble it under my breath. Just to be safe. Just in case I never see you again. I am getting better at using names. Sometimes, it’s less intimate than “you” and people always want to hear how their name sounds in your voice. Just to be sure. I am getting better at biting my tongue. Hard enough to be effective, but not enough to hurt.
I am getting worse at thinking big. I imagine ideas shrinking down to pin pricks and dreams able to fit in one closed fist. I am getting worse at ending the day. This is why I’m standing in the kitchen at midnight, rubbing at my mascara over the sink. I am getting worse at waiting. I sit with my hands knitted together in my lap, my feet swinging back and forth. Now, now, now, I chant.
Better at making up stories, but worse at knowing where to end them. Better at knowing what you want to hear, but worse at remembering to tell you.
I
When he hears where I went to school, he insists on pulling up Facebook on his phone. I don’t like this game. “Do you know Chris?” “Matt?” They sound familiar, I tell him politely. It’s not really a lie; everyone knows a Chris and a Matt. This is enough for him.
II
“You have a lovely head of hair.”
I just smile. He will cut off the end of my sentences and use my name too many times in his. I have already made up my mind. He ends his pitch and squeezes my hand too hard. I put his card in my pocket. I will wash this skirt three times before discovering it again.
III
It’s too hot for a walk and I am not dressed for it. Out of place among bare legs and sundresses. I cross my arms over my chest at every intersection and wonder how many more blocks. Later, I will inspect myself in the low light of the hotel ladies room. I will sweep my necklace aside and stare at the hollow of my neck. It’s red.
I have some things I should be taking care of, but they keep getting backburnered for more urgent tasks – can’t leave the office until I put out this fire, can’t catch up on email until I file this Forbes story, can’t even think about fall until I get July out of the way. These are excuses. I have time (not much, but still) to gchat, to read Gawker, to make plans to go kayaking.
And so do you. I’m not too busy and neither are you. Not really. We are prioritizing (consciously or otherwise) the easy and the immediately gratifying and the non headache-inducing over the hard stuff, the complicated, the ambiguous, the heavy lifting. If the opportunity of a lifetime came along, our full plates and scheduled-to-capacity calendars wouldn’t mean a damn. Screw distance and timing and drama; we’d be ready in a heartbeat. For now, though, it’s easier to tackle the menial and the mindless than the things that require digging in and grabbing a shovel. Soon. Next week for sure. Sorry, I’ve been putting you off. Can we push this to September? You know the drill. The self-inflicted guilt of not getting to it is easier to manage than the sting of going after it and coming up short.
Maybe you don’t have the focus or desire or courage to tackle X right now, but you do have the time and the capacity. Don’t kid yourself.
Hate To Break It To You is a recurring feature wherein we dispense succinct home truths that everyone could benefit from facing up to, unpleasant as they may be.
Maybe it’s not The Man. Maybe it’s not the system. Or your deadbeat dad. Or the stuck-up bitches you went to high school with. Or the bank. Or the Kardashians. Or microwave radiation. Maybe the problem really is you.
No one wants to face that. Everyone wants to be unique, but not so unique that you’ll be forced to admit that you are problem. So your life sucks on all fronts, but when you compare each of the situations, the only thing they have in common is that you’re smack dab in the middle of them. You with your impatience, your timidity, your pessimism, your impulsiveness, your ego, your self-blaming ways. It’s a hard and humbling realization to come to. Maybe you haven’t caused your current predicament, but your actions and thought processes have surely encouraged/nurtured/sustained/supported it. Things fell apart, but you didn’t bother to put them back together. You just grabbed the next toy off the shelf and were surprised when it eventually broke, too. But there comes a time when you have to look at the patterns, crunch the numbers, draw some #$%^@ Venn diagrams and confront the possibility that the one thing out of all the crappy things that you have direct and enduring control over is you.
Maybe the next time you throw out the old “It’s not you, it’s me” excuse, you’ll spare a moment to consider that it might have more truth to it than you think.
