My Real Memoir
I’d just turned twenty-five, and was recovering from multiple goodbyes, while pushing back against that old recurring sense of purposelessness. So I clung to what remained: I still had friends, even if the tide had carried some away. And I still had my fiancée Kat. What else did I need?
I’d volunteered to direct this year’s city arts festival, and being allergic to insignificance, had moved it from the City Hall lawn to flashy Lido Marina Village. The festival started well. But when my street theatre group The Right Pithee Players arrived late, I knew something was wrong. Mary and Gail biliously dragged themselves through the performance. And where was my Kat, their mutual BFF? I gave them “the look.” Following their college’s performance of Romeo & Juliet last night, they confessed, they’d attended a cast party of Dionysian proportions.
“So, everyone drank a lot?”
“And smoked, and snorted, and…”
“Where’s Kat?”
“She’s not doing well, Mitch,” said Gail. From which I gathered Kat must be camped out next to a toilet in their new apartment.
The minute the festival ended, I drove over there. Kat answered the door in saggy sweats, and then shuffled silently back into the living room. “That bad, huh, babe?”
“You can’t imagine.”
“And?” The cast of this experimental Shakespeare production traded roles every night, she told me — and at the cast party as well. “So, they…?”
“Played musical beds.” In fact, one particularly charismatic guy made-out-“and-then-some” with every girl there.
“Which included…?”
“Me.”
I took her hands. “Look, we can get past this, babe. I mean, you only fooled around and—”
“We had sex.”
I was blindsided. Was this the beautiful nineteen-year-old who’d told me at my birthday party last week that she couldn’t wait to marry me? “Do you still love me?” I asked. And without hesitation she replied,
“Yes.”
“Well, then…I forgive you, and we don’t have to break it off. We can—”
“Yes, we do.”
“But why?”
“Because I liked it.”
Tybalt’s blade. “So, this is it? Like…forever?”
“I don’t know. Maybe someday… I just know I’m not ready now.”
“But you still love me, so there’s a chance.”
“Maybe, but—”
“Then I’ll wait.”
She told me not to. And yet she’d dangled a thread of hope. A thread I clung to like a lifeline. Two days later, I scribbled on the back of a torn flyer, “A man cannot choose whether or not to love, only where to focus it.” Most of the page is torn away, but the last stanza remains: “You have been my focus. In loving you, I have loved all things.”
My longing for a big, overwhelming love, and hunger to know my life’s purpose seemed like twin titans. I hadn’t yet learned that they were the legs of a single colossus. One that had guarded my heart…
Since the day I was born.
My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.
You will wait a looong time. Mpve on.
Considering this occurred some decades ago, it seems I have. ;>)
Heartbreaking, but I understand the need for purpose and meaning.
Thank you, my Anonymous friend.
Been there but I am guessing your story ends better.
“Allergic to insignificance…” what a profound insight!
You are not alone in being driven by this. Thank God we can find our immeasurable value and significance in the Atonement.
Amen to that, Rob.
Kat was right-she wasn’t ready for a commitment 🙂
Exactly.
“My longing for a big, overwhelming love, and hunger to know my life’s purpose seemed like twin titans. I hadn’t yet learned that they were the legs of a single colossus.”
Really good imagery! Poetic, while also succinctly summarizing the raw reality!
So glad you liked it, Abe. The metaphor does capture what I wanted to say, but I was afraid it might come off a bit purple or overwrought.
Well, for what it’s worth, I quite liked it…though I am a sucker for metaphor and prose, so make of that what you will!
Me too, Abe!
Breakups are so painful. I’ll look forward to the happy ending and especially reading how the Guard of your heart eradicated those two titans!
Not that I’ve exactly “arrived,” Nancy, but I do think I’ve understand that collosus far better than I did then.
Mitch, it was better to suffer a little cut from that sword than a run-through your innards. I see her side, and yours too. Us guys tend to take things like that harder than the womenfolk. Nice recall of a tough time.
Thanks, Phil.
I actually appreciate the fact she was upfront, honest, and told you NOT to wait on her.
And if that hadn’t taken place, you wouldn’t have met your wife and had your glorious girls/women, either!
“Everything happens for a reason”, they say.
<3
We all can be left hung in between many places often
Very true, Zuhaib.
Such a heart-breaking story, but such a great read. Thank you so much for sharing, Mitch. I’m grateful to have come across your blog, and I’m looking forward to reading more. Wishing you all the best 🙏
Thank you, Manny. Delighted to meet you, and wishing you all the best as well.
I really like your choice of words, even if I need to translate some of them to understand. Maybe I interpret a bit wrong here and there, but its okej. “being allergic to insignificance”… that stuck with me! I think I am the same. I need a purpose and my relationships also need that. Thanks!
Yes, you’re interpretation of that phrase is perfect, Anna!
Sometimes there’s a part of me that wishes I had sown some wind oats in my younger days. Your stories show me what I missed out on, and that I chose a better path.
I’m sure you did, Eric!
Kat was right and you were both extremely lucky that night, even though you felt like falling on your sword. 20/20 hindsight and all that. Every cloud, Mitch.
Indeed, Nancy. My silver lining is the woman I did marry nearly ten years later.
Your two quotes on love are spot on, Mitch. They sound like something Marcus Aurelius or Seneca would say.
Why, thank you, David.
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