Congratulations. Mazel Tov. Bumblebee Tuna.
Tonight I am sitting in my apartment dripping sweat while the city (and the nation, for that matter) suffers through a heat wave. I am not dancing drunkenly surrounded by my friends, celebrating the hope and promise of a new marriage. A few months ago, I saved this date for Ryan and Mary’s wedding, and if you haven’t figured it out, that didn’t happen.
A lot of what we planned for months ago or even a year ago has not happened, my friends and I have wandered around, tripped over and stumbled through our first year in the real world, learning that what we had planned for was not the best we could hope for.
I wanted to write Ryan an email to wake up to today, but of course I didn’t have the Internet and by the time I got to work he had beat me to it. I was going to tell him that I was sorry it didn’t work out, that I wish things could have worked out differently, but I realized that I don’t believe either of those sentiments.
I am sorry that he was hurt. I am sorry that there is no explanation for what happened, that as awful as it is that She broke his trust and disregarded his feelings, I can’t tell you why she did it. I AM sorry that Ryan felt any pain, but I’m not sorry that I’m not making a toast while wearing what most certainly would have been a fugly bridesmaid’s dress. Ryan, like everyone else I know, seems to have ended up right where he was supposed to be.
No, he didn’t imagine that on this night he would be working at the pharmacy rather than enjoying an x-rated time in the honeymoon suite, but I know he also didn’t imagine that instead of moving across the country to find a job and to be with his bride he would instead be moving to the other edge of the country to get paid to attend a great University and get a Master’s in latin.
So no, I didn’t get to toast Mr. and Mrs. Williamson tonight, but I will make a toast to Ryan: Here’s to a guy I know (who is totally single and totally smart, you should totally call him) who got kicked in the balls and kept on walking. I wish you plenty of happiness (and hot dates with young co-eds) in the coming year.
A year ago, cool mountain air was blowing through my windows at night, I would fall asleep poolside with a book across my chest, I would be surprised by things like strange horses wandering too close to the house.
Right now I am living in a small box where the city grit has become ingrained in the windowsills, unmoved by any amount of Endust, Kabbom!, or generic all-purpose household cleaner. I fall asleep in a pool of my own sweat each night because during the winter the radiators are hot enough to boil pots of water and in the summer the air simply won’t move no matter how wide you open the windows. I’m surprised by things like the nutcase in the next building screaming out the air shaft at the pigeons and threatening to call the cops and turn them in because “their DNA is all over the place,” or a cockroach trying to run up the wall of the hallway while I try to remove a flip-flop quick enough to smash it.
A year ago, I was also getting ready to fly back to Minneapolis, pack my bags and move to New York to live with my boyfriend. Now boyfriend and I are looking for separate apartments.
Like Ryan, I don’t have a strong history of going with the flow. I don’t flow. I like order.
Example: an excerpt from an email written one year ago today.
I wake up some mornings and think what the fuck am I doing here when I could and probably should be looking for employment that will actually pay the bills? I change my life plan on a weekly basis and I have a constant tight feeling in my stomach like I have already wasted the best years of my life, that 22 is not young, that the next time I wake up I will be 53.
I know, crazy right? If I could go back in time, I would tell 22-year-old Nora to take it easy. To drink some more wine, fall asleep by the pool, enjoy the way that mountain air feels against her skin while she sleeps. To step away from her computer and try to learn to write without holding the pen like a monkey. To write some more stories. To enjoy her days of carelessness without that worry over the future. Life takes care of itself.
All of the drinking and dancing would've been fun, but we'll just do that some other time. Perhaps on a weekend, not a THURDAY. Also, you would've gotten to pick out your own dress (or so She said), so if it were ugly, it was nobody's fault but your own.
And thanks for writing a brief online dating bio for me, if I marry one of your readers some day, you'll have a great post to make. We can even do commercials together, like Dr. Neil Warren Clark of e-Harmony.
getting married is for the birds...
Are you sure it's a good idea to walk barefoot in your hallway(even for a few steps) while you try to smack a cockroach with your shoe? I mean, a COCKROACH was just walking there.