What If

Recently I have struggled with the ‘What if’ factor when it comes to two, now thirty something year old men that have been a part of my life.  I know it has been triggered as a result of the uncertainty within my personal and professional life.  Only natural I suppose – I am the Queen of examining the grey matter in life.  Sometimes you can get caught up in the muck and it is better not too; but sometimes, I do believe we must lose ourselves in the muck in order to gain perspective and clarity.  It makes us better-rounded as human beings.

November 9, 2013 – my Senior Prom date got married.  July 26, 2014 – my best guy friend is getting married.  Two guys who I had crushes on, but nothing every came from our make out sessions.  Perhaps we were too young, too afraid of what it meant, in our search for clarity, our search for the definition of the blurry symbols.  All the signs were there for both of these guys to amount to something in my future – but none of them ever did.  Chalk it up to the time – 2003.  

Ah, 2003.  When cell phones were truly just coming on the scene and who had EVER heard of texting?  Weren’t we all just getting use to electronic mail and instant messenger via AOL?  Oh 2003, how long ago you seem.  I was 22 when I was graduated from Muhlenberg and while I don’t feel all that much older due to different choices and paths I have taken in my life since “the bubble” that is Muhlenberg, I do feel old.  I can feel the burning under my eyes at 12:15am, the dark circles growing; whereas 11 years ago, the night was like a Cat Stevens song, ‘Oh Very Young.’ 

To think we haven’t even touched on my sexuality and my mom’s interpretation of it.  The statement I am greeted with lately – and it is a statement that is the same every time my sexuality is discussed with mom (which is practically next to never), “You were picked on so much as a child that you finally found acceptance within this group, this lifestyle – that you continued to seek it and now you are scared because you realize it isn’t you.” The truth of the matter is, yes, I do have these feelings towards women and it is only a select handful; yes, I did find acceptance within the group – though I never truly felt comfortable fully identifying myself as lesbian; however, I was quick to identify as gay.  The ‘What if’ factor is something that truly rots within me – I looked at photos of John and his then fiancée on their wedding website the night before their wedding and felt, ‘That could have been us – we could be that happy.  We had that charisma.  We clicked.’  But we never pushed the envelope – chalk it up to fear or youth, we never did.  Who’s to say if our lives would have agreed to go on the same path – as I wanted to pursue a journalism profession and John a route that seemed to be designed for him by his father – law.

John and I clicked – and perhaps it was just our teenage years – but I don’t think it was.  We connected from the time we were 8, when we were strategizing how to beat our opponents in mixed doubles in a weekend round robin hosted by our tennis club; or the time we were 18 dancing at my final prom at Kent Place – we understood there was something there; or was in when we were 19, sitting across from my best friend and her now husband – with Yuenglings in our hands, nervously looking at each other as to how that night would end (in a long, very long hug); or was it when we were three months shy from our college graduations when we shared our first kiss.  Our first kiss that played out so simply, yet perfectly.  I could tell you every moment leading up to that kiss, and all that followed after for the night.  John was my best guy friend and losing touch with him was absolutely crushing.  I think what makes losing touch with him even harder, is the fact my mom saw John several times on Nantucket when she went to visit since he and I lost touch.  I cannot help but wonder if John ever asked her to say hello to me; or if she told him about me.  

Whatever it was that caused us to lose touch after we both finished our post-graduate work in Boston (John went to Law School at Suffolk – just blocks from Emerson, where I received my Master’s), I do regret it.  I regret the ease I felt with him, from his simple head tilt that gave me the impression, he truly was listening to me – which we never followed through on all the glances we exchanged. I regret never following through with statements he made about how I was his “mother’s favorite”.  But again, I was only 18 – how was I to know that this man would eventually vanish from my life?  I think the hardest part for me in dealing with the situation with John, is the fact, he didn’t meet his now wife until the end of 2011.  Only two years ago they met – though friends had been wanting to introduce them for a while – with no luck.  All that time until 2011, I could have had a chance with someone I still could see myself being very happy with (or can I?  Is it simply me longing to fill a void?  That is another writing in itself).  Then you would also have to factor in my lifestyle for work – I was committed to living and working in New York City; whereas John seemed to be completely focused on a life on Nantucket as a lawyer.  Attempts I made to find him, were met with no success – no LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.  John had simply vanished.  Needless to say, this was more than disappointing.

Of course with all this John talk, Ethan needs to be addressed as well.  Ethan is a very good friend of mine, one whom I have not been intimate with since 2004.  We met in college – first in passing when we were freshman.  At that time, Ethan was dating Annie, also known as Casper (the Friendly Ghost) – due to her very white hair and pale complexion.  I saw them a few times on campus – they were a relatively shy looking couple – seemingly always attached at the hip, with their hands stuck in each other’s back pockets; but they represented a cute first year couple.  It perhaps seemed as if they would be together forever; but that’s when senior year came around.  I had returned from a year abroad in Australia and had maintained only a select handful of friendships – not by choice, but by the fact most of my former friends felt I was being selfish by electing to spend an additional semester abroad, rather than come back and be at school.

September 12, 2002 – around 1 in the morning, was the day I officially met Ethan.  It was Ethan’s 21^st birthday.  Kristin and I had decided to go to Callahan’s for wings and beer before the PKT brothers decided to bring Ethan there for the last leg of his birthday pub crawl.  Kristin’s then boyfriend, Josh, was a PKT brother along with Ethan.  As we noshed on our 10 cent wings and guzzled our cheap Yuengelings – Kristin and I began to talk about the year ahead.  Senior year!?!  How did that happen to us?  Regardless, we were going to make the most of it.  And based on the new liver I had developed when I was over in Australia – I knew we were in for a great time.  With an additional gulp of the delicious amber fluid, we heard the mass stumble in.  The boys found us quite quickly and Ethan managed to stagger his way towards me and fall into the open space next to me.  He immediately slouched over in a drunken heap, but did not forget his manners, “I’m Ethan.  We’ve never met.  It’s my birthday you know.”  He extended his hand.

I hesitated with my hand as it was covered in wing sauce; I quickly reached for a napkin and shook his hand, “I know who you are, you used to date Casper.” I immediately cringed and began an internal dialogue.  ‘Was I supposed to say that?’ ‘Would that upset him?’  ‘How long had it been since they had broken up?’  

 
Kristin started laughing, as did all of Ethan’s fraternity brothers.  Ethan was quite drunk but he managed to ask, “Whoooo?” In a long drawl that almost sounded like a ghost blowing in the wind.  He cracked a smile and helped himself to one of my wings.  I ordered him a beer and so began our friendship, which was often mixed in with a few nights of make out sessions.

I liked Ethan a lot – talking with him was so easy.  He was very friendly and smart.  I liked spending time with him and when those night’s led to make out sessions, I felt comfortable letting him sleep over and share my twin sized bed in my hole of sized dorm room in East Hall.  I felt myself wanting more from him and one night, he went to kiss me and I hesitated.  I stepped back, but Ethan tried again – this time we hadn’t been drinking.  “What are we doing?”  I asked the dreaded question and it hung in the air like a big rain cloud.  The silence was brutal.  Ethan looked me with an anxious look, it was obvious that he hadn’t given it that much thought.  I refused to answer my own question; Ethan spoke quietly, “I see us as having fun, I don’t want anything serious right now.”  I could understand his reasoning – Annie had truly crushed him; we were in our final semester in college – the last thing we needed to do was to get serious.

“Yeah.”  I too spoke quietly.  I should’ve let it go at that, but I didn’t.  “Ethan, I don’t want to do this fun stuff anymore – I want something more from this.”  I had never heard myself say those words to anyone and it took me by surprise.

“I understand.  But I don’t want it.  I like you a lot but I can’t do serious right now.”  He was so polite, it was impossible not to appreciate his honesty.  I took a few steps over to my left and opened the door to my room.  I couldn’t look at him as Ethan walked out.  I wondered if I was doing the right thing.  I was scared but I knew I had to say what I said.  I think what also made it so difficult was the fact one night while we were fooling around (another sober night), Ethan said to me, “I want you to meet my parents at graduation.”  “Why?”  “Well, you know in case we ever get married.”  It was the most serious thing I had ever heard him say in the few months we had known each other.

I was stunned.  And when I look back at that now, perhaps Ethan was more serious about me than he was letting on.  Perhaps he was just concerned about having his heart broken again.  Understandably so.  Ethan was dating Jackie for 5 and a half years before he proposed to her.  It took them almost two years to decide on a date.  My mom says Ethan has a quiet sadness to him and she thinks it is rooted to the fact he is in love with me.  I am afraid to go the wedding – I don’t know how I will react.  I am also afraid of how I will react.  I will be the only single friend from college there and I don’t know if I can stomach listening to him exchange vows.  It doesn’t seem real.

Ethan and I went to our 10 year reunion together – to which we were approached by a couple of people, “Oh wow, so you guys finally started dating!”  We laughed nervously; though we had gone to several weddings and events together – this was different.  I am not entirely sure what made it different, but it was.  When we drove home, we talked a lot about it and the conversation went from joking to serious.  Ethan admitted that he did have feelings for me when we were going to the weddings together, that he didn’t want to act on them because of the fact I was “into girls” – and was afraid I had ruled him out forever.  I was stunned.  I think a part of me has always been curious about what would have happened if I had just kissed him again in the summer of 2006.  I told him that I liked him too, even with liking the girls, that there were feelings there – but I was too scared to act on them and I didn’t want to ruin our friendship.  I don’t remember much more of the conversation, as I was somewhat drunk.  

I am 33.  I am afraid of being alone in my personal life – I think that is why I stay home in New Jersey for long periods of time lately.  I am so very afraid of what lies ahead and while some days are better than others, most of the time, I am stuck in the grey and frozen in thoughts – or sometimes no thoughts at all.