Showing posts with label crushing the hearts of little children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crushing the hearts of little children. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Today I broke the news to the little girl I mentor. I was going to do it last Thursday, but I was a turd and told the school's secretary to tell her I was sick. I thought maybe I could postpone it one more day. Unfortunately, they had Friday and Monday off, so today was the first day I could see here again since I acted like this:
Get it?
When I got to the school today, one of the other mentors was already there, so I didn't want to pull out the gift I had for her (a $3 box of chocolates and a Valentine's card) in front of the other student. We're allowed to get them gifts under $10. And, since it's me, I do this about once a month. It might be a Subway picnic, or a Tinkerbell scrunchie. Either way, I'm fairly sure I give her little gifts too often. So instead of getting the bad news out of the way, I had to wait until the last ten minutes to break the news to her. We've been working lately on her US geography, so while we were filling out the states and the capitals, I kept pointing to Seattle and Phoenix, mentioning my recent trips there. I have been on two, two week trips in the last three months, so she's had a little taste of what it's like to not have me visit every week.
While she was eating her lunch and I was trying to remember whether Bismarck was the capital of North or South Dakota, she wandered over and looked in the locket around around my neck, asking me who the pictures were. My Godmother (who was very much like a grandmother to me) passed away in September. I got one last visit with her in July. During one of the quiet, rainy afternoons we spent with her, she pulled me aside from the family, and slowly lead me down the hall to her room. I can still feel the soft frailty of her skin as she held onto my hand and arm to steady her on the walk. When we got there, she picked up an Italian alabaster jewelry box, and handed it to me. We sat on the edge of her bed and she explained each piece she was giving to me. One of those was the locket I wear almost every day. She had it as a teenager, and it has pictures of her parents in there. I've left those pictures in. They're not as important to me as they are to her, but they were important to her, and that's what matters.
I didn't explain this all to her today. Rather than say, they're my Godmother's parents, and since she was my first cousin twice removed, they're my great-great aunt and uncle, I simply said, "They're my grandmother's parents."
"So your..." she rolled her eyes up as she thought for a moment, "Great grandma and grandpa?" She closed the locket, and as she walked back around the little table to her lunch said, "If I ever get a locket, I'm going to put pictures of you and me in it."
And knife. To the heart. Again.
When we finally got some time alone, I pulled the chocolates and the card out of my purse. As I was pulling them out, I said, "I have bad news." Which in retrospect was probably not the best way to do it. I saw on her face a mixture of 'Ooh, presents!' and 'Bad news?'. It must have been a bit like saying "We're going to Disneyland! Cause your mom died and she had a good insurance policy!"
"I love you! I'm leaving."
"I also killed your puppy."
Then I broke the news, "I'm moving away. To Seattle."
"What? Nooo!" she said. (maybe I'm being a little melodramatic with the exclamation point, but she did draw out the 'no.')
"I know," I said, "I'm sorry. But I won't be gone forever." At this point I handed her the card and the chocolates. I explained the visits I had planned for April and May, and promised that we would do our annual spring picnic. I told her we would exchange letters, and I could call her once a week if she'd like. By the end of our hour long lunch meeting, she didn't seem crushed. Thank god. I dropped her off at her classroom, and she hugged me tightly.
I went back out to my car, and though I knew better, totally listened to Taylor Swift's 'The Best Day' and got misty eyed. That's the second time in two weeks this little ten year old girl has indirectly made me cry! Stupid cute little blond countrified adorable shithead! Making me care so much about you! Damn it! And then I realized, yes, I'm going to miss her, but I was feeling the hurt from the wrong way. I was upset because I was leaving. I was upset because I was going to hurt her. I wasn't thinking about the actual hurt she might feel. I was only thinking about myself. I totally suck.
And just as I had this little self-centered epiphany, this line came on;
"God smiles on my little brother,
Inside and out, he's better than I am."
And then I really lost it. Lip quivering, sucky-gaspy air breaths, lost it. While I was driving. Because that made me think of my younger brother, who yes, can be hot headed and selfish sometimes, but he's also very young and for the most part, is probably the best human bean I am privileged to know. And I'm not going to get to hang out with him every day. And my youngest brother, though his presence is a quieter and more subtle, is just as awesome.
"God smiles on my little brother,
Inside and out, he's better than I am."
And then I really lost it. Lip quivering, sucky-gaspy air breaths, lost it. While I was driving. Because that made me think of my younger brother, who yes, can be hot headed and selfish sometimes, but he's also very young and for the most part, is probably the best human bean I am privileged to know. And I'm not going to get to hang out with him every day. And my youngest brother, though his presence is a quieter and more subtle, is just as awesome.
So with the combination of guilt-of-wrong-sided guilt over my student, and the realization that I'm done watching my brothers grow up close and personal, kinda sucker punched me today. All while I was running errands. I still had to go into the bank and take care of some paperwork. Then I had to go to the post office. And I'm not a subtle crier. That's one of the reasons I don't cry very often. I turn red. And I swell. It's not pretty.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Weeper.
The cute cry is what happens when I watch Grey's Anatomy. The middle is what I was doing in the car. This never ends well. The third is what I look like the day after I cry. Eyes swollen shut, nose three times its usual size, lips looking like Goldie Hawn's. It's usually easier to say, "Yes, I was in a bar fight."
But I cried like that in the car. Not for very long, though. I had to suck it up and finish my errands. I realized though, as I quickly internalized my feelings and stuffed them into the deep, dark place I store my twisty thinks, that somewhere between 10 and 24 I lost a lot of what makes children awesome. I suppose it's only natural, but I've decided I want to try and get it back. I'm not entirely sure what it is, maybe naivety? Innocence? I hope not. Some of those things you just can't get back. Maybe it's hope. Hope that great things will stay great, and that bad things will pass quickly.
Surely, I haven't lost hope, have I? Wow, this blog just went from contemplative to super depressing. I don't like it anymore. I'm hopeful! I'm childlike in all the best ways! I'm a positive person! I'm happy! Look at this:
There. Now I feel more awesome.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
In yesterday's blog I said, "...and kissed me properly. The way I deserve to be kissed." And it made me start reminiscing about the last kiss I had, at the airport. The best kiss I've ever had. The first kiss I ever had. All I've been doing since then is thinking about kissing; how much I love it, how it's pretty much the greatest thing ever, how I won't be kissed for another two weeks. So I thought, "Ah ha! That's what I'll blog about, since I don't want to blog about what's really bothering me today."
The first kiss I remember was when I was three years old. I don't count this, since he was still in diapers. He's my best friend's little brother. He's a year and a half younger than me. I remember the day very plainly. It was one of those rare, early summer days in Arizona. The gutters were full of warm water and perfect for splashing in. We were playing in the rain, splashing and running, and I was carrying a little red umbrella. We sat down on the curb, our toes squishing the muck in the gutter, and we kissed. Someone ran inside and grabbed a camera. That picture was passed around both families. I wonder if it's on facebook yet...
What I would love to consider my first kiss happened in first grade. When I was in preschool, there were two Jeffs in my class. I had a crush on blond Jeff. I don't really remember not-blond Jeff. I was four. Blond Jeff's mom was our teacher, and halfway through the school year, they moved away to Hawaii. I believe it was because his dad was in the Navy. Regardless, blond Jeff became Pineapple Jeff in my mind. Well into my first grade school year, Pineapple Jeff moved back to Arizona. I still remember which house was his on Pepper street. While he was away in Hawaii, Jeff had managed to skip a grade, and was a second grader. I remember he came over to me one day on the uneven bars, and waited for me to finish my turns. He asked if I wanted to go to the swings. At my school, that meant a boy liked you. Especially since he asked me while I was on the bars. The swings were on the other side of the playground, so we walked all the way across the field together. The next day, we met up at lunch recess and played together again. This continued for a week or two, and soon all of our classmates were teasing us. We argued that we weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, but playground politics dictated that we were. One day, while I was playing on the slide, he came over to me with a very determined look on his face. He grabbed me by the wrist and we ran across the football field. He dragged me behind one of the second grade portables, placed his hands firmly on my shoulders, and pressed me against the wall. He kissed me quickly the first time. When I didn't run away, he puckered up his lips again, and put them against mine. I didn't know what to do, but I had seen plenty of movies. So I just held my lips there against his, my eyes clenched and lips pursed, and didn't move. When he pulled away, he looked surprised. He stood there for a moment, then sprinted away. He didn't talk to me for the rest of the week. When he finally did play with me again after lunch on Monday, he told me he was moving away again. I don't know where Pineapple Jeff is now, but I sometimes remember my first cinematic moment, and wonder if he's still as pretty as he was in elementary school. Probably not. If I could remember his last name, I'd track him down, and give him an earful. He would be a lot easier to find on facebook if his name was actually Pineapple Jeff. He helped create my social retardation, making me expect everything to be whimsical and perfect, like my first kiss there against the wall. Damn that little second grade Casanova.
There are mushrooms growing on his cargo pants. What a tool.
The kiss I should probably consider my first happened early in my tween years. I don't remember the poor kid's name, but I remember the circumstances. He was the youngest of three kids. His mother was dating my trashy, trailer-parky cousin, Little Tony. I kid you not. I am Italian, and one of my trashy cousins answers to 'Little Tony'. Har, har. My grandmother and Aunt had just built a swimming pool in their backyard. In Arizona, that was pretty much the best scenario for us kids during the summer. All the swimming we wanted, with normal levels of chlorine and far less urine. Little Tony brought his super sweet but skanky girlfriend and her three kids over a few times that summer, and I noticed that the youngest was starting to get sweet on me. I didn't like him at all, and did my best to discourage him. One day while we were swimming, he challenged me to a breath holding contest. I had just learned how to keep my nose plugged under water without pinching it with my fingers (it took me a while to learn the trick after I had my tonsils out) and so readily participated. We agreed that we would keep our eyes open so that we could make sure the other wasn't cheating. Almost as soon as we got underwater, he put his hands on my shoulders (a running theme, I notice) and tried to plant a kiss on me. I started to swim up, but he was holding me under pretty tightly, and he ended up kissing the corner of my mouth and my cheek instead. I reflexively panicked, and got water up my nose. We both surfaced, sputtering and coughing. The coughing was all me, actually. He didn't say anything for a moment, didn't even ask if I was all right, but as soon as I was sure I was not going to drown, I turned and looked at him. His facial expression was a mix of concern and fear. It should have been. I punched him in the nose.
Luckily, his siblings didn't see this, and all of the adults were inside. He wailed, grabbed his face, and scrambled out of the pool. He didn't even bother to shout a rhetoric, 'What was that for?' He knew. I was nervous about going inside after that, but knew it would look suspicious if I didn't. I grabbed a towel and headed inside. He was sitting at the kitchen table, a wad of paper towels soaked in bright red blood held to his face. I'd broken his nose. We exchanged looks again, and I was sure I was about to get grounded for the rest of my natural life. Both his mother and mine were standing next to him. My mom asked me what happened, and I just kind of stammered and looked back at Broken Nose Boy (I want to say Justin, but I know that's not right.) He pulled the paper towels away from his face and said, "I was swimming with my eyes closed and swam into the wall." I made an excuse to get out of the kitchen, practically ran to the bathroom, and burst into tears. I instantly felt terrible, and guilty, and foolish. I think this is the moment that boys stopped being put into one of three categories (family, crushes, and grossness), and became just as individualized in my eyes as the girls in my little ten year old social circle. Not only had this guy felt the sting of rejection, but he lied to both of our moms, possibly risking being reprimanded for his recklessness, to keep me from getting in trouble. Either this was the nicest guy ever, or he really had a crush on me. I haven't punched anyone since.
The kiss that was my first real kiss, as it was post-pubescent and intentional, happened when I was seventeen. I had graduated High School a year before, I had been in college since January, and I had a tattoo. All of this, and I had never been kissed. I hated myself for it. I was finally beginning to feel the pangs of my social retardation. I was 'courting' a guy from my college classes. We hung out two or three nights every weekend, flirted constantly and teased each other with our words, our body language, and sometimes even our bodies. I was seventeen. He was twenty-seven. We had a party at our timeshare, since my parents had to use the time at the hotel or lose it. I had invited quite a few friends, and we all hung out. That night, however, the old man was running cold. It pissed me off. (On a side note, he was one year older than my boyfriend is right now, and I was sevenfreakingteen. Gross. What was I thinking?) A few people outside of my core group of friends had come over for the party as well. Including my best friend's older sister and younger brother. You remember him. The little boy in the rain. He was now the sometimes drummer for the band I was in, and he was notorious for his man-sluttiness. He had tried to get my cousin (and bass player) to make out with him only a few weeks ago. The older sister, my gay best friend (this was pre-gay-outing for him), me, and Drummerboy all stayed the night at the hotel. It wasn't planned that way, it just happened. As I was sandwiched between a friend I thought was straight (but wasn't) and a friend I thought would never want to do anything with me (he did), trying to fall asleep, I felt a hand on my hip. I opened my eyes to see that Drummerboy was uncomfortably close. Then he did the douchiest, lamest thing possible for a 15 year old boy to do. He made a kissy face, puckering his lips, pecking the air between us a few times and closing his eyes lazily. I'm sure he thought he was being suave. I thought he was acting like an idiot. But he was a boy, and he was willing to kiss me. I thought, "What the hell? Might as well get it over with." and I kissed him. About five seconds in I realized that it was a terrible mistake. Not because I didn't have any feelings for him and was using him, not because it might make my best friend angry at me, not because it might make band practice weird, but because he was a terrible kisser. About five seconds after that, his spit was on my forehead. I don't know what kind of crazy, magically teleporting saliva Drummerboy has in his mouth, but it weirded me out. Though I knew I was late to the game, I was pretty sure I was awesome at it, and that Drummerboy was definitely not. Years later, one of my boyfriends would tell me I was a good enough kisser to compete in the Kissing Olympics, win gold, and go on to have a professional career with lucrative product endorsements. A week after the terrible forehead spit kiss, I somehow wound up playing the longest, kinkiest, dirtiest game of Spin the Bottle. I ended up kissing my gay (still pre-gay) best friend, two good girlfriends, and the aforementioned old man. The gay friend was the only good kisser. Even with all that chemistry the old man and I had, our kisses were just regular old kisses. Borderline boring, even. 
There are two kisses I consider the best kisses I have ever had. Both were with Boyfriend. The first was our first kiss together. We had been hanging out all night, business as usual. Boyfriend, the Gay Best Friend (now post gay, and also responsible for introducing Boyfriend and I) and I had spent the night hanging out, skinny dipping, and having a few beers. Boyfriend's best friend and the Gay Best Friend's boyfriend (confused yet?) had already crashed and gone to sleep. The three of us remaining were watching Kill Bill. As the sun was coming up, the Gay Best Friend went to bed, and as he rounded the corner into the hallway, he turned around and dramatically pointed a finger at us. He said, "If you two don't just kiss, and get it over with, and clear all this sexual tension, you're not allowed back in my house." Then he went into his bedroom, and I didn't see him again until our next hang out, where I thanked him profusely for what he provoked.
Like this, but with a hot gay man instead of a monkey.
Boyfriend and I laughed nervously, but kept watching Kill Bill. We were snuggling under a blanket together, but after the GBF's threat of party house eviction, we had both remained motionless. I kept watching the clock nervously. I knew I had to leave soon and get my parents' car back to them, but I didn't want to leave Boyfriend's side. I finally had my perfect opportunity to finally kiss him. It was June. We'd met in September. It had been nine torment filled months of sexual tension and amazing chemistry, with a couple of near kisses in November and December. Earlier in the night we had joked about having our hair pulled, and I had broadcast to the sausage fest that was my social life that I like having my hair pulled, being bitten, etc. and TMI. When the movie ended, and I knew I was going to have to drive far above the legal speed limit to make it home in time, I turned to Boyfriend. With a torso full of fluttery insects, I jokingly put my hand in his long hair and asked, "So do you like having your hair pulled?" But as I turned my face towards him, he leaned in towards me, sliding his hand into my hair, his thumb stroking my cheek. He kissed me eagerly, enthusiastically. He kissed me like I was Disneyland, and he was nine years old, and had been waiting through the entire school year for his summertime visit. The early morning sunlight made the living room look like a movie set. Everything was golden. I heard violins. When we finally parted, we rested our foreheads against each other for a moment. I don't know about him, but I was dizzy. My head was spinning. I felt light headed and out of breath and validated. I took a slow breath to steady myself while he moved his thumb gently across my cheek and kissed me again. It was probably one of the most amazing moments of my life.
The other top kiss of his, came the night (two years later) that he finally admitted he loved me. We spent the whole night talking and trying to strategize getting officially together (he had a girlfriend at the time, but that's another story... one so long that I'm devoting an entire novel and its sequel to it), and most of it was spent just sitting and being stunned that we had finally said in plain words what was so painfully obvious. The sky was lightening, and we knew we had to eventually part. Even though the word love had been thrown about, we hadn't touched any more beyond the occasional knee bump, or arm graze. We were sitting in a car, and our arms were on the center arm rest, millimeters away from touching. During a quiet moment in the conversation, I extended my little finger and put it over his. He grabbed my hand with both of his and interlaced our fingers, squeezing tightly. After a few more minutes of talking, we fell silent again, and he said, "I'm trying to figure out if we should kiss."
I looked up and met his eyes, only to find them pleading. It was surreal. It was like a scene out of a movie. Again. I couldn't believe it. "I... hold hands with my platonic friends... at scary movies..."
"What about the shoulders? The leaning...?" he asked.
"It's a pretty fine line..." I said, and squeezed his hand. I was running out of excuses and we both knew it. It was ridiculous to postpone it anyway. We both wanted to kiss, we needed to, we should. He told me he was in love with me and always had been. Why the hell hadn't we kissed in almost two years!? "Your hat's in the way," I said, and pushed it up off his forehead. He sighed heavily and leaned in and kissed me. He did that face cradling thing again. After about thirty seconds of the most emotionally packed kissing I've ever experienced, he pulled away, and put his forehead on my shoulder.
"I'm dizzy," he said breathlessly. Even though kissing is (almost!) a daily occurrence for us now, every once and a while, there's one that makes my breath catch and my head sway. Gold Star, Darling!
Lori + Stu = Awesome. It's MATH.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
As any of my close friends will tell you, I have usually bestowed my favorite little nugget of advice on them at some point; "Guilt is a useless emotion."
And it really is. The only time guilt does you any good is if it motivates you to make right the situation that is causing you to feel that way. If it's something in your past, then you can only change how you act moving forward. There's no way to undo anything. You just have to learn and grow and make amends. Guilt will only weigh you down and keep your mind rooted in the past. If, however, you're feeling guilty about something you're about to do... well. Then I would usually say, "Don't do it."
That's the pickle I find myself in. I'm sad about leaving my family. I'm sad about leaving my closest friend. But I know that with the social network era we live in, I'll be fine. We'll be able to communicate every day. It won't be the same, and believe me, I will still cherish the time I get to physically spend with them, but I know that our relationships won't suffer. I'm guilty, however, about the little girl I mentor.
Right after I moved to Tulsa, I got involved in a volunteer mentoring program at the elementary school by my house. For almost two years, she and I have met once a week and just hung out. In a weird way, I do consider her a friend. Sure, she's only 10, but I've known her for two years. I've watched her grow from an imaginative 8 year old to a clever 10 year old 'tween' (I hate that expression, but it fits here.) She was enrolled in the program originally because she was anti-social. She's the youngest of three children; her brother and sister were 28 and 18, respectively, when I met her. Her mother was quite old when she had her, and her father is not in her life. She knows he's a meth addict, and that's why he's not allowed to see her. Her grades were only average, though all of her teachers agreed she was a bright girl, and they told me she rarely played with the other children at recess. So you can imagine my surprise when they told me at our annual progress meeting that she was making friends, attending sleep overs, had gotten involved in her youth group at church, and all of her grades had improved to A's and B's. When our moderator told me all of the things she had said about me in her meeting, it actually made me cry.
Now you have to understand the gravity of the situation. Sure, I cry when I watch Grey's Anatomy. Sure, I cry when someone I like dies in a movie. In real life, however, I very rarely cry. In the last year, with the exception of my Godmother's death/funeral, I've cried four times about something real. Four! And I was drunk for two of those. Until yesterday, when I cried about leaving that little girl.
When I was in Seattle for the first time, I sent her cards and postcards while I was away. I've gone to Arizona twice since I've started mentoring her. The first time I brought her back a little refrigerator magnet puzzle in the shape of a sun, and the second a pencil in the shape of a saguaro cactus. Both kitschy, cutesy souvenirs. This most recent trip to Seattle, I couldn't find postcards until halfway through my trip, and the grocery store nearest my hotel had the tiniest greeting card section I've ever seen. There were no cheesy 'Thinking of You' cards, no adorable 'I miss you' cards. Nothing. Even the blank cards were overtly Valentine'sy. Roses and chocolates and hearts... excuse me while I vomit. So since I couldn't find any touristy postcards, I decided to get her a little souvenir. While Boyfriend and I were waiting for our Chowder place to open, we popped into a shop across the way and I found her a little teddy bear with a rain slicker. Her school does a ridiculously awesome sorting, like Harry Potter. (I'll have to ask her if there's a talking, mind-reading hat involved.) Their mascot is a bear, and there are five different kinds of bears, like houses. She's a Polar Bear. The little rainy day bear I got her is not white, but it is a pale yellow, so it's close enough.
When I saw her yesterday and presented it to her, she immediately started playing with the coat (which you can remove.) As we were walking back to her classroom, she held the bear out in front of her and said, "What should I name it?"
"I don't know. Whatever you want to," I said.
She danced the bear around in front of her while she thought, then said, "I'm going to name it Lori! It's Loribear." And hugged it to her chest... while a knife went through mine.
I haven't told her yet that I'm moving. I wanted to wait until the guys have their new van, so I'm absolutely, 100% going on tour. I don't want to tell her I'm leaving and then be like, "Just kidding!" The downside of this, of course, is that we're getting closer and closer to me leaving, so she won't have much time to get used to it.
Granted, most of these mentoring relationships only last one school year, so we're ahead of the curve. And I'm planning on sending her postcards and cheesy trinkets while I'm on tour. But it's not the same, and I feel terrible. This change in my life blindsided me. I always thought Boyfriend and I would just be friends; that our boat had sailed. I never expected to have feelings for him still when we became friends again, and I definitely didn't think we'd ever get together. It was such an unexpected twist. I thought I would be in Oklahoma for the rest of my years. I thought I would either find some country boy I liked enough and have a passel of kids, or spend the rest of my days writing and tending to my passel of cats. I thought I'd be here to see her go on to middle school, to high school. I fully expected to mentor her long enough to talk about boys and whether she should take art or driver's ed. I might get to do those things if we keep in touch, but it will be a lot more difficult now. And I feel absolutely horrid about that.
I think maybe I'll give her a stack of pre-stamped envelopes with my parent's address on it. That way she can send stuff to them, and they can send it to me, wherever I may be.
Damn... I just... wow. I'm dreading telling her. I'm so scared she's going to cry, and that'll make me cry. Or worse, she'll not cry. She cried around me once and tried her hardest to hide it from me. It was heartbreaking.
I am sooo not looking forward to this.
And it really is. The only time guilt does you any good is if it motivates you to make right the situation that is causing you to feel that way. If it's something in your past, then you can only change how you act moving forward. There's no way to undo anything. You just have to learn and grow and make amends. Guilt will only weigh you down and keep your mind rooted in the past. If, however, you're feeling guilty about something you're about to do... well. Then I would usually say, "Don't do it."
That's the pickle I find myself in. I'm sad about leaving my family. I'm sad about leaving my closest friend. But I know that with the social network era we live in, I'll be fine. We'll be able to communicate every day. It won't be the same, and believe me, I will still cherish the time I get to physically spend with them, but I know that our relationships won't suffer. I'm guilty, however, about the little girl I mentor.
Right after I moved to Tulsa, I got involved in a volunteer mentoring program at the elementary school by my house. For almost two years, she and I have met once a week and just hung out. In a weird way, I do consider her a friend. Sure, she's only 10, but I've known her for two years. I've watched her grow from an imaginative 8 year old to a clever 10 year old 'tween' (I hate that expression, but it fits here.) She was enrolled in the program originally because she was anti-social. She's the youngest of three children; her brother and sister were 28 and 18, respectively, when I met her. Her mother was quite old when she had her, and her father is not in her life. She knows he's a meth addict, and that's why he's not allowed to see her. Her grades were only average, though all of her teachers agreed she was a bright girl, and they told me she rarely played with the other children at recess. So you can imagine my surprise when they told me at our annual progress meeting that she was making friends, attending sleep overs, had gotten involved in her youth group at church, and all of her grades had improved to A's and B's. When our moderator told me all of the things she had said about me in her meeting, it actually made me cry.
Now you have to understand the gravity of the situation. Sure, I cry when I watch Grey's Anatomy. Sure, I cry when someone I like dies in a movie. In real life, however, I very rarely cry. In the last year, with the exception of my Godmother's death/funeral, I've cried four times about something real. Four! And I was drunk for two of those. Until yesterday, when I cried about leaving that little girl.
When I was in Seattle for the first time, I sent her cards and postcards while I was away. I've gone to Arizona twice since I've started mentoring her. The first time I brought her back a little refrigerator magnet puzzle in the shape of a sun, and the second a pencil in the shape of a saguaro cactus. Both kitschy, cutesy souvenirs. This most recent trip to Seattle, I couldn't find postcards until halfway through my trip, and the grocery store nearest my hotel had the tiniest greeting card section I've ever seen. There were no cheesy 'Thinking of You' cards, no adorable 'I miss you' cards. Nothing. Even the blank cards were overtly Valentine'sy. Roses and chocolates and hearts... excuse me while I vomit. So since I couldn't find any touristy postcards, I decided to get her a little souvenir. While Boyfriend and I were waiting for our Chowder place to open, we popped into a shop across the way and I found her a little teddy bear with a rain slicker. Her school does a ridiculously awesome sorting, like Harry Potter. (I'll have to ask her if there's a talking, mind-reading hat involved.) Their mascot is a bear, and there are five different kinds of bears, like houses. She's a Polar Bear. The little rainy day bear I got her is not white, but it is a pale yellow, so it's close enough.
When I saw her yesterday and presented it to her, she immediately started playing with the coat (which you can remove.) As we were walking back to her classroom, she held the bear out in front of her and said, "What should I name it?"
"I don't know. Whatever you want to," I said.
She danced the bear around in front of her while she thought, then said, "I'm going to name it Lori! It's Loribear." And hugged it to her chest... while a knife went through mine.
I haven't told her yet that I'm moving. I wanted to wait until the guys have their new van, so I'm absolutely, 100% going on tour. I don't want to tell her I'm leaving and then be like, "Just kidding!" The downside of this, of course, is that we're getting closer and closer to me leaving, so she won't have much time to get used to it.
Granted, most of these mentoring relationships only last one school year, so we're ahead of the curve. And I'm planning on sending her postcards and cheesy trinkets while I'm on tour. But it's not the same, and I feel terrible. This change in my life blindsided me. I always thought Boyfriend and I would just be friends; that our boat had sailed. I never expected to have feelings for him still when we became friends again, and I definitely didn't think we'd ever get together. It was such an unexpected twist. I thought I would be in Oklahoma for the rest of my years. I thought I would either find some country boy I liked enough and have a passel of kids, or spend the rest of my days writing and tending to my passel of cats. I thought I'd be here to see her go on to middle school, to high school. I fully expected to mentor her long enough to talk about boys and whether she should take art or driver's ed. I might get to do those things if we keep in touch, but it will be a lot more difficult now. And I feel absolutely horrid about that.
I think maybe I'll give her a stack of pre-stamped envelopes with my parent's address on it. That way she can send stuff to them, and they can send it to me, wherever I may be.
Damn... I just... wow. I'm dreading telling her. I'm so scared she's going to cry, and that'll make me cry. Or worse, she'll not cry. She cried around me once and tried her hardest to hide it from me. It was heartbreaking.
I am sooo not looking forward to this.
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About Me
- Lori
- Seattle, United States
- During this course of study, you will come to learn much about the strange eating, sleeping and mating habits of the Instrospective Lori under stress. We will observe as she moves halfway across the country to start a life with her own Captain Wentworth, takes a year off of work to pursue a writing career, and incessantly references Jane Austen.