Sometimes it’s foolish to let yourself feel all the things your heart tells you to feel. But there are those rare occasions where it’s even more foolish not to. The trouble lies in the ability to distinguish between when you are supposed to let your heart tell you how it feels and when you need to stop being foolish. No meter exists. A light won’t flash, an alarm won’t sound, a whistle won’t blow. The proverbial angel and devil battling for your decision only appears in cartoons; in my mind, the teenage girl and the old cynic take their place on opposite sides of my collarbone.
The most recent battle came in a potential visit from birthday boy. He’s in the shit. No one would deny that. When I last saw him—-three weeks ago-—we had spent most of our time talking about his friend’s suicide. I happily expended my emotional energy on listening to him and holding him. It didn’t make sense to have sex; he was too grief-stricken. I understood that and was glad I could help. But, after five weeks of not having sex, I felt a little . . . ripe. I planned a day of hooky that coincided with one of his days off. As time ticked away and I waited for him to let me know when he would arrive, the teenage girl sank into her notebook to draw hearts and write bad poetry as the cynic rocked proudly in his chair, content in his appropriate assessment: he would not be coming. Apologies and promises to meet for brunch the next day followed, but the next day followed only with a profusely emphatic “I’m sorry.”
Any reaction on my part seems flawed. We can’t break up because we’re not together. I can’t just stop talking to him because then I feel like I just added to his emotional mess. My inability to decide which move to make next comes from the inability to tell the difference between a man who is in the shit and a man who is shit.
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