Lock, Shock and Barrel Out the Door

you know that moment when your heart stops and you've realized you might be making or about to make a big mistake? i experienced that last night and even though nothing happened, it scared me pretty badly.

the ladies -  S-squared - and  I were out  on the town. it was supposed to be just a couple drinks at the Westin pop-up patio and then suddenly we were out to dinner at Chinois in Yaletown (delicious chinese food btw) and transitioning straight into drinks and dancing at Pierre's Champagne Lounge.

now i'm not a big drinker. i drink socially with the ladies and i love a good glass of red but i don't like the feeling of being drunk. i don't like not being in control and i'm such a lightweight (i'm pretty tiny) that the line between a good buzz and patchy memories is very fine - pinstripe fine. after a certain point, things just get blurry and i stop seeing faces, and only remember certain details clearly. but we were having fun and i had already consumed more than average and then B got brought up so i ended up having a few more than usual.

before i know it, i'm sashaying across the lounge to get the attention of some guy, who i now can't even remember what he looked like, except that he wore a red shirt, and began enjoying drinks at their table.

when you're standing there laughing and making small talk while your brain is busy asking you what you're doing, that should be the first clue to stop and reassess the situation. or you know, this dude talking about an after-party with people doing coke, that could be another clue perhaps - more of a slap in the face to wise up, but hey to each their own.

at some point, i'm not even sure how, or if something was said or what not, but i was led around the side of the bar and i'm suddenly in this restroom - the restrooms in this lounge are all individual unisex rooms. i remember kissing red shirt guy and then very clearly, as though someone threw cold water at me or gave me a 5-hour energy shot straight to the bloodstream, i remember him reaching over and locking the door. THAT right there was when a sick feeling hit me, telling me something was wrong. it was the moment when the lights came on and everything clicked into place and i realized that i had zero control, that i was now in a locked room with someone i don't know and who works out a lot (trust me i felt his crazy amazing abs and arms), that my ladies weren't there, and that if i screamed no one would hear me over the music.

i'm not even sure what i said, i think it was something like i need to leave or i want to leave. all i know is i unlocked the door and walked out and then out of the lounge and all i could say to the ladies was that i wanted to go home.

i'm too old to be doing shit like that anymore. i don't like those bar star guys and i was being dumb because in the moment it was fun and the attention was nice and i wasn't thinking about B. but the panic i felt when that lock closed made my heart stop.

but i think the worst part is that i'm so embarrassed that i let myself get into a situation that scared me.  maybe it was an eye-opener i needed to wise up and grow up.

One Lump or Two

My grandma loves tea. When i was a little girl, i would spend my summers at my grandma's house and every day we would stop and have our own little tea party in the afternoon. mine always had lots of milk and sugar, and hers was always black. it was always Red Rose Orange Pekoe tea. 

As i got older, every time i'd visit grandma we'd have tea. it became one of those things that are comforting because you expect them and because it's predictable. i knew if i was going to grandma's, we'd have tea. i knew if me and grandma went out for lunch or if we were visiting grandpa in the care facility that we would have tea. 

growing up i also had a lot of issues with my stomach and tea was one of the few things that soothed my tummy. 

tea for me is warmth, comfort, a hug, a friend, a loving relationship. it's something that lifts me up on a bad day, that warms me when it's cold out, that makes me feel better when i'm sick and that allows me to catch up with those i love most. 

on Sunday i hosted a tea party for my nearest and dearest ladies. we all got dressed up in our "Sunday best" - big hats, pearls, pretty dresses, lacy gloves - and gathered at a bakery cafe near my home that holds high tea. i picked friends from different circles and tried to meld them together. anyone who has attempted this before knows that it doesn't always work. 

i've felt a bit at a loss with my friends as of late. my closest are all entering, or are in, a different stage of life (having babies, marriage) than i am. P told me a few months ago that she was pregnant and since then i've kind of felt like my besties are leaving me behind. here they are developing these amazing familial connections and creating homes for themselves and all i've got is a career. a career doesn't hold you at the end of the day or celebrate those little victories with you. B was the only one who i told that i felt that way - i didn't want to make the ladies feel bad or have to listen to comments about me being so young and there being so much time.

as such i've really started to gravitate towards my downtown life and my downtown friends (DTFs) who, like me, have careers and little personal lives. i've picked up some of the roots i had let settle with my besties and put down some new ones with the DTFs.

i guess i hoped that the tea party would show me that my two worlds aren't as far apart as i had imagined, and as they connected and grew to know one another over a pot of that magical healing tea, that I would feel like i belonged in both worlds and that there was a middleground.

instead, i sat in the middle of the group feeling that separation more than ever as i bounced back and forth between conversations that hardly ever crossed over, wondering if everyone was in fact enjoying themselves or if they were just putting on a show to spare my feelings. 

maybe the worlds don't have to cross over. maybe i can be navigate both individually. but sometimes i just feel so disjointed and these days i just feel lost without a map and without someone to help me find the way. 

time to put on a pot of tea. 

My Imp of the Perverse

I started out as an English major when i began university - mostly because i didn't know what i wanted to do, but i knew i liked, and was good at, English. As a result, i've read quite a range of works and sadly, not many stuck with me once the class ended.

My favourite lower division classes however, were my American Lit classes. I don't think i read anything that i didn't like and both professors were wonderful and engaging instructors who made you want to learn understand, whose passion radiated through their lectures and left lasting impressions on my undergraduate mind.

One of my favourite short stories is Edgar Allan Poe's "The Imp of the Perverse." It comments on people's self-destructive behaviours, their "peversity" as it were, and how we crave to do wrong simply because we can and it's an option.

We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss—we grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink away from the danger. Unaccountably we remain... it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bone with the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a height... for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it.

I sometimes feel this self-destructive desire on my commute home when i cross through the tunnel in the counter-flow lane.

The counter-flow lane used to terrify me. i hated how close my vehicle would be to oncoming traffic. I hated how you could feel the rush of the other vehicles passing you, that all it would take is one person to turn their steering wheel slightly the wrong way and it would be disaster. I avoided it at all costs, always making sure that i took one of the regular lanes.

Then i realized the counter-flow lane moved faster and suddenly, getting home sooner became more important than my fear.

but then a strange thing occurred....i began to imagine steering myself into oncoming traffic. Every time i go through the tunnel, i now think about my wheel slipping and careening head first into a semi truck or a yaris. would i die instantly? would regret wash over me as soon as i did it - would there be time for that? this inexplicable desire, not to end my life - no i'm not suicidal, but to do what i know i shouldn't and what no rational person would do is intoxicating.

i don't consider this my imp of the perverse coercing me to act against my better judgement, i feel like i'm too aware of it to blame it a mythical being. i think where my imp prefers to perverse my life is when it comes to dating.

i choose dating situations that i know have no future because it's easier. i go in expecting it to fail and when it does i can handle the disappointment, i can shrug it off and i can move on to my next victim. the only casualty? my calloused heart as it grows tougher and tougher with each shot of novocaine taking away all feeling as i walk into each new date colder and more distant than the last, leaving pieces of other hearts trailing behind me like a bleeding yellow brick road of buried hopes.

a brain, courage and a heart certainly don't await me at the end of this path. just a pack of flying monkeys coercing me into doing what i know is not good for me.

Romantic Comedy Monologues

My heart hurts.

i poured my heart out to B a few weeks ago. J and her husband joke that it was my romantic comedy speech - her husband didn't think people actually said things like that. but i guess when you've thought about saying something enough times, when you finally do say it there is a bit of that rom-com moment.

I've had a couple dates these past few weeks and on each of those dates with this perfectly nice guy, i spent the whole time thinking about you and what you were doing and whether we might see each other after....and when my date was done i ended up here with you. you're the person i tell everything to, when i have good news or bad news, or silly news like i ate a piece of pizza, you're the first person i tell. and when i think of things that i want to do, you're the person i want to do them with. And ... i'm so jealous that you had a date with some girl....so jealous...

that's probably not a word for word transcript but it captures the gist of what tumbled out of my mouth as i lay in bed (totally G-rated stuff here folks - we're talking about a guy i've never kissed! minds out of the gutter) next to B, the guy who has become my best friend in the last couple years. the guy who i can't imagine not being a part of my life.

B had expressed feelings for me a few times and i had turned him down...i just never thought about him that way. Then there was this moment at a wedding in March....just a moment where i thought, if you were anyone else, someone who didn't matter to me, i would kiss you right now just to see what it'd be like. suddenly everything changed. it sounds corny but suddenly everything was different. his touch felt different, tingly like a soft breeze blowing unexpectedly across my skin, awakening all my senses. spending time with him and his family felt more like i was part of that family.

i started trying to figure things out. i hadn't mentioned anything because i didn't want to say anything if i didnt' understand how i felt. did i like B? how had i gone from never thinking about kissing someone to suddenly imagining all sorts of possibilities? i didn't want to jeopardize the friendship that had grown so near and dear to my heart that it had entwined itself around each vessel and artery, growing alongside and over past scars, creating its own place.

then suddenly there was this girl. no one in particular, just a girl.

and the scars around my heart pulsed and recoiled as they remembered the person who for six years had formerly held B's place, the person who i had tried to confess my feelings to but chickened out and suddenly this girl was there and still is there. the person who slowly stopped talking to me.....who i once called my favorite and who now i only know through Facebook....

so i poured out my heart....partially panicked at the thought of losing my best friend, partially at the thought of potentially building new scars and partially panicked because i have a tendency of keeping my real feelings concealed knowing that being a maneater is easier than being someone who feels.

i was told he still liked me but that he didn't want a relationship right now and you're a relationship girl. the girl who hasn't called someone her boyfriend in 5 years is a relationship girl..

two weeks later. he chose her.

two weeks later and things are different.

two weeks later and texts don't get returned.

two weeks later and my heart hurts.

Uncertain Depths

it's cloudy.

the exact details are hard to remember, like a memory that's been percolating too long and the mind has had the time to supplant its own ideas and version of events. Or like a dream you've thought about so much that you begin to trick yourself into thinking it might have just happened.

but it did happen.

vision got clouded in a smokeless room. judgement was steered in the wrong direction without the help of libations.

a life preserver tossed into a bottomless lake causing ripples to cascade out in all directions.

for her, it started as escape from tiresome conversation, unwanted advances. for him....well, he didn't know he needed saving...yet.

their eyes groped their way across the social divide reaching for the inexplicable familiarity of longing. their laughter reached out and caressed the other, drawing them closer than the music thundering around them. their voices whispered unspoken secrets below the surface of their pleasantries.

the ripples touched those around them, drawing attention to the closeness, to the chasm that had suddenly been placed between them and their friends. people whispered and made judgments, placing bets on how the evening would end, but neither he nor she noticed, lost in the moment with their surroundings melting together in a soundless blur of motion.

she chose to forget what she knew and to ignore the cold piece of metal that invisibly bound him, keeping him at a distance. the heart she had kept hidden for so long beat hard and heavy in her chest propelling her forward through the night. it shivered with each touch and each new piece of information left her craving just one more taste. his words had no sooner left his lips and her taste buds begged for more.

the ripples kept emanating touching the strangers now surrounding them, letting them get a glimpse of the secret written across their faces, their gestures and their every breath.

the night air was a shot of espresso, making the longing more conscious and more deliberate and reaffirming that this wasn't a dream with life-like qualities, but instead life flavoured with dreams of promise.

the ripples had reached a point where their mouths now discussed every reason why they shouldn't, while their bodies screamed every reason why they should. they pirouetted around the magnetic pull. he dipped and she spun, their paths intertwining ever closer.

the shrill sound of a safety whistle echoed across the darkness as waves of desperation and necessity crashed over their lips and flooded their minds with thoughts of possibility.

meanwhile the ripples continued their journey into the shadow creating an uncertain future.