This weekend I saw Ms. Havisham go up in flames. To
preface this, let me be completely forthcoming and admit I have never read Great
Expectations. For never having actually read the book, I spend a lot of
time thinking about it… In fact Ms. Havisham has become one of my favorite
daily metaphors and anecdotes. If I am having a particularly bad hair day
encumbered with frizz I call it a Havisham day. If I am feeling belittled,
slighted or patronized by a man, I am quick to inform him I am not Ms.
Havisham… though usually the men who make me feel this way don’t have the
foggiest clue who she is anyway… The other reason I believe I became so
enamored with a book I hadn’t read was due to its remarkable title. I love book
titles. My ambition has never been to write a New York Times bestselling novel
but merely to author the titles for several of them. I used to keep a list of
ideas for book titles and would add to it constantly. Call me blasphemous, but
in some ways I quite enjoy books that can be understood and even explicated
solely from their titles…It is much easier to place all your assumptions and
narrative onto a cover page.
As a general rule, I am wary of dating a man who
hasn’t read Great Expectations (or at least the 10 books listed above
and below it on a recommended reading list) I know this is a hypocritical and
strangely arbitrary expectation seeing as I have never read the book myself and
have likely read more Cliffs notes than actual classics. Regardless of its
absurdity, it is a deal breaker. In my mind the desire for a significant other
to have read a book is far more attainable than other “expectations” that often
prevail in relationships. I am not sure how many of the men I have loved have
actually read Great Expectations. I can assuredly tell you I have never
loved a man who wasn’t brilliant, intense, or passionate, or even sometimes the
terrifying mix of all three. I am intense. I like intense. The idea of being
with someone who can fall asleep within five minutes of their head hitting the
pillow terrifies me. For better or worse I find myself constantly drawn to the
ones who analyze and analyze and then analyze again…
After completing cancer treatment and returning home
from Texas, I was tired of myself. I didn’t want to analyze. I didn’t want to
be intense. I didn’t want to dwell on or make sense of the past six months of
my experience. I was too tired to think about the person I was actually in love
with. I had exhausted myself thinking about him and our future and what my
future would look like. Being in love when you’re 20 and battling cancer is
akin to living in a rom-com on steroids during the most tenuous scenes. Though
I was declared in remission by the time I returned home, I was emotionally
spent. I wanted froth! I wanted my life to be a guilty pleasure. I wanted my
days to play out as though they were US magazine in live and living color. The
day after I got back from Texas I did something to even surprise myself. I had
a lot of odds and ends to catch up on including taking my car to the shop for a
tuneup. That day, I chose to call the most peculiar of choices to pick me up
from the autoshop. I called a boy I barely knew. We had mutual friends but shared
nothing beyond them. In high school I considered him to be one of the rudest,
most obnoxious and immature fellows I had ever encountered. The feeling was
mutual. He was far from fond of me. I can’t explain what prompted me to call
him on this particular afternoon but I was surprised by how easily I could talk
to him. We spent hours in my driveway just talking. Initially we expressed our
assumptions of and even disdain for the other but gradually moved into an
intrigue and curiosity. We both knew from the first afternoon we spent together
there were lessons to learn from the other. We spent every single day of this
particular summer together. We drove aimlessly in his red truck, listened to an
inordinate amount of Counting Crows, and did absurd childlike things. We played
miniature golf, ate at questionable Chinese buffets, staged swordfights and saw
ridiculous animated movies. In some respects I got to be the easiest version of
myself with him. It wasn’t intense, I wasn’t intense (even though he would
often tell me I was) I didn’t spend every minute thinking about life and death
and purpose. I didn’t overthink the future. I didn’t place all my hopes or
vision for a future on him. He was insightful in the fact that he pointed out
the moments and ways I took myself too seriously. It was nice not to be
serious.
Around mid summer he informed me he wanted to go on
a break. I was floored. He explained I had become like a brand new videogame
played too intensely, for too long, for too many days. I had never played
videogames. Sans my brother, my house had been a complete estrogen fest. We
owned one Nintendo game console from 95-96 that was seldom played. I couldn’t
make sense of how our relationship was comparable to videogames. I have never
been keen on playing games or existing “virtually.” As much as I had wanted to
move past the previous few months of facing my mortality and constantly
reflecting on the sanctity of life, I couldn’t in this moment. Being alive and
breathing, engaging and sharing, listening and pondering were beyond what could
ever be “virtually” understood. I was nobody’s videogame.
Despite what may go down as one of the most surreal
and bizarre conversations I have ever had with a man, we moved beyond it and
became great friends for years to come. He continued to serve as my escape
valve and I became his depth. We argued constantly. Our visions for the world
were never congruent. He could never understand why I was such a “feminist” and
would expend all my energy on getting into graduate school rather than trying
to land myself a fella. I could never understand why he expended all his energy
on nineteen-year-old girls and gun rights.
Somehow we still respected and learned from each
other.
Over time I recognized, as much as I sometimes
wanted to, I could never be the “easiest” version of myself. I also came to
realize he had no desire to be the “hardest” version of himself. I couldn’t do
simple and he couldn’t do complicated. The friendship unraveled rapidly and
painfully. The discussion that initiated the unraveling had to do with Great
Expectations. I tried to explain to him I was not Ms. Havisham.
Unfortunately, he understood Ms. Havisham about as well as I understood
videogames. He continued to refer to the book as “Big Hopes.” I knew in that
very conversation my vacation from “Lindsay-dom intensity” was over.
Though it was often times dysfunctional and quirky,
I still miss him and the friendship. It taught me a lot of things, especially
about Ms. Havisham. I have no desire to be swindled from a fortune, sitting in
the dark in a wedding dress. I believe in fighting for light, for living in
illuminated painful intensity. I know my life was not preserved to live
“virtually.” My presence has been requested and it will be granted. I watched
Ms. Havisham go up in flames this weekend, but I won’t.
No comments:
Post a Comment