The Long Way Around

As I walked the Terrible Twosome around the village of Hoosick Falls today, I was struck by how the simplest things can bring back waves of long-buried emotions, releasing cobwebs from the heart and replacing them with billowing dust clouds of painful nostalgia.  Today it was the slightest crispness in the air–not our usual coat weather, but the first hintings of spring that signal a real change in season.  While I know it was only a tease, a precursor to tonight’s snow, it poked at my aching heart just a little.

Having Biscuit here this week has forced me to confront my emotions, if even just a little bit.  Warm rain falling on the ground outside my window tries to wash them away, but those damned Dixie Chicks and their friend Adele keep throwing them back in my face.  Only Katie, with her rock-hard consistency, keeps me from breaking down in tears.

Perhaps it was my way of living out a fantasy, but I realize that all those things I attempted to manifest with Tall Boy–the life-long relationship, the family, the old house in some rolling hills, the feeling that was was finally finding a home–were just that:  a fantasy.  It wasn’t a lie, by any means, my stating it clearly and asking for it from the Universe, and then from him.  It just wasn’t honest.

I have never been one to take the ordinary way in life.  From the way I dressed, to the way I studied, to the jobs I took, I’ve done everything ass-backwards in most people’s eyes.  My attempts at normalcy have flopped miserably.  I just can’t seem to do things “regular.”  But to most people, I am told, that’s the beauty of Meena.  Why I found myself wanting to do it differently, to “grow up,” to have a regular life with a regular guy, I may never understand.

The way I live is lonely, for certain.  There is a fair amount of risk and drama associated with loving a woman whose goals are constantly changing, and whose emotions are sometimes out of control.  These emotions are predictable, and they pass; but for someone who doesn’t grasp–nay, love–the concept, it can be terrifying, or at the least, a touch inconvenient.  Asking a man who’s already lived his share of drama to take on such a task was perhaps unfair.  Perhaps he already knew that there was no part of me that could stay settled down for long.

Lately I have struggled with intense homesickness.  I find myself wanting to leave Ver-New-da behind and relocate someplace warmer, lighter, more folksy.  When I offered to do so with Tall Boy, I told myself it was Forever.  He must have sensed that I don’t have “forever” in my future.  I’ll always want to run away, scrap it all, wander on to the next adventure.  My homesickness isn’t that, at all; it is merely a need to touch base before running on to the next adventure.  Today, I want a partner and a family and a place that feels like home.  Tomorrow, I will realize that no place will ever feel like home, and no partner will ever be enough.

In some way, I believe that Tall Boy shares the same affliction.  I became so angry with him for not knowing what he wants.  Now I know that in a way, he DID know what he wanted.  Like me, he just stopped wanting it when his wanderlust set in.  He’s a runner, too.  He can’t do “regular.”  Right now, he desperately wants to, and sees his female friend as his home base.  He is quite literally stuck, at home.

There is a slight possibility that someday, far in the future, I’ll be ready to settle down.  I may find a place that feels like home, and I may settle into regular life with all its benefits and joys.  But today I cannot picture it.  As much as I wanted that picture to be my reality, I also know that I wanted just as much to drag him on one crazy adventure after another, never settling into any life at all.  We would have bought that big old house on a hill, and within a couple of years, I would have wanted to sell it and move on.  It’s what I do.  I can’t do regular life.

Sometimes I worry that I will come to the end of  my life, look back, and realize I never went anywhere at all.  That was the feeling that hit me as I pounded the dirty sidewalks with my unruly mutts.  I was haunted by a memory of my Aunt Anna, who died single.  She had never married, but had lived a pretty “regular” life.  Seeing her in the hospital, not long before she passed, affected me more than I realized.  There was a distant, almost terrified look in her eyes.  She did not want to die.  I couldn’t help thinking she wanted to go back, to do it differently.  I pictured her saying to herself, or bargaining with St. Peter, “I didn’t do it right!  I  need another chance!”  I became terrified then, myself.  I became afraid that the way I live, the choices I make, would come back to haunt me in a moment like hers.

I do have faith, however.  I have faith that I will end up where I’m supposed to, probably in much the same place as just about everyone I know.  We’ll all be rocking on a porch somewhere, looking back on what we’ve done and what we have.  My story will be different than anyone else’s, and they’ll think I’ve missed out on something.  But I will not have missed anything.  I got where I was going.  I was just taking the long way around.