Love: An Obituary

It started at a party.

At first, I didn't want to go and Mike did. Then he didn't and I did. After all, it had only been four days since September 11th. No one wanted to move, breathe, leave their beds; why on Earth would anyone want to dance, drink, and yell at each other over loud music when there was so much sorrow in the world? What would be the point?

But as we got to the 12th, and the 13th, and so on the world took on a different feel. People were emerging from their flannel-sheet cocoons with a new mantra, "live now". The world could end at any time, we could be bombed into oblivion, our loved ones might be asked to fight and die abroad. "Live now"...go on and meet people, love life, let go of old fears and old grudges.

And so we decided to go.

And that's when I met you.

Later, we'd omit the part about the "party" being one of the frat variety, and how I met you and two of your friends by being flashed for beads. We spent the night on the dance floor, kissing and talking. Later, we lay in bed and whispered to each other, basking in the glow of the moment.

Alas, our first go-around was destined to fail. You were at school two hours away and I had enough on my plate with work, school, and a semblance of a social life. I only saw you twice in three months, communicating mostly through AIM and the phone. I broke off our then-short dalliance with a phone call right before winter break.

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We started talking again in March. You'd had a failed fling with a friend and I'd missed you. We talked about making an effort to see each other because there was a palpable attraction. I could feel it through the phone. We got back together at the end of that month.

Things were great for a while. The summer was tough, with you living down the Cape with your Nana and me living in Wakefield and working two jobs, but we made it work. Once school started, we were seeing each other all the time until winter finals. After that, I was doing my show and you were living your life. We barely saw each other; add to that the fact that we were still young and I was still stupid, and it equaled a break in April of 2003.

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I was shocked when you decided to come to my college graduation party. We couldn't keep our eyes off each other all night. Once everyone left the party and you stayed behind, I knew that this might be my chance to make things right. We talked, we kissed, we made up and made love, and all was right with the world. We could make this work.

The next year was incredible. I was home, finally close enough to see you on a regular basis. You were finishing up your senior year. That time was bliss; I'm not sure I was ever happier for a longer continuous stretch of time than I was for that year. We laughed, and played, and loved, and dreamed about the future. We even moved in together once your original plan fell through, assured by each other that it was you and me for the rest of our lives.

That would turn out to be a colossal mistake due to the fact that we had no money and you had no friends left up here. Salem was a nightmare. We were broke and we had no social lives to speak of. We fought constantly. We patched up the relationship over and over again. I think we were more scared of leaving each other because of the lease than of the relationship itself. I moved back home but we were too damaged by then; we kept it together until that July and then called it quits. We fooled around for a few months more, unable to let go, and then stopped talking in October.

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I can remember calling you in February of 2007. I was distraught; I'd had a little bit of a medical scare and I needed someone to talk to. You were the most comfortable person I could think of. At the time, I thought that was a compliment.

We started with talking. We moved on to dating. And then we slipped back into love as we had so many times before. And it was wonderful. I was convinced that this was it; you were The One. We had jobs, our own friends, shared confidence; it seemed like everything was falling into place.

March 23rd, 2008 is still the happiest night of my life, even if there has been a little bitterness injected into my memories since then. I asked you to marry me, and you said yes. You looked so beautiful that night. The stars were aligned, the night went as smoothly as I could have ever hoped, and by the time we fell asleep that night the world was ours for the taking, together at last.

Life was great after that. We were ecstatic, telling people left and right that were were engaged. We began making plans for a wedding date, for our children's names, for invitees to the reception.

Finally, my dream of becoming a family man with you was being realized.

And then you began pulling away.

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It started with your workload and school load during the summer. You were taking three classes, working two jobs, and suddenly the time spent together began to dwindle. We went from seeing each other four nights a week to three, to the weekends, to one day a weekend. You were stressed out, but you chose to spend your time off with your new friends. I understood why you thought the way you did: I'd always been and would be around; you wanted to make your own friends and keep them.

So we spent less time with each other. That was frustrating, but I dealt with it. Then you started pulling away further, making plans with your friends and family on the few days we both had free to see each other. You became emotionally distant. Our phone conversations became shorter and less lively. It seemed that you had time to talk and text to everyone except me.

You were attached at the ear and fingers to that goddamn phone. No matter where we were, it was a guarantee that there'd be no meaningful conversation as long as one of your friends was texting you. My family and friends noticed, too; every time you were out with us or over at the house they'd make comments to you about your obsession with your phone. People began pulling me aside and asking me if we were having problems.

I brushed off the criticism, even when the truth was staring me in the face. You were detached, distracted, uninterested. What I took for your desire to be more independent blinded me to what was really happening: you were giving up on our relationship because you stopped feeling the same way about me that I felt about you.

I struggled to keep us together and to understand you. You told me I was suffocating you. You lied to me about why you were feeling the way you were. I believed it because I had no choice. If someone can just fall out of love with someone else without provocation, what does that say about the other person? Can love ever be "forever" if it can be so quickly tossed away?

I had the creeping suspicion that there was someone else. Eventually that was confirmed by an outside source, someone to whom I will be forever indebted. Confronting you about it, I couldn't help but notice the total lack of emotion when you admitted to the elephant in the room. I don't know why I expected more crying or begging or explanation; I hadn't gotten anything real out of you in months.

This time, it was easier. I'd been dealing with a shell of my fiancee for the past few months; the woman I was dealing with now, I didn't even know. Breaking up with someone you don't know is easier than the alternative.

I don't know if you ever would have told me about the other person, but I wasn't willing to wait for you to figure it out.

So here I am now, trying to live my life without your helping hand; unable to converse with your family, to share in the joy of your new cousin, to be included in the love that you so willingly give to others.

I'm doing alright; I have the best family, friends, and co-workers a guy could ask for. I'm going to get back on my feet and try to remember how to start living as a single man again. My stomachaches have disappeared for the most part. I'm probably drinking a little more than I have in recent times, but that's because my amazing support system has sounded the alarm and tried their hardest to help me move on, and that means taking me out. Things will settle soon, and I'll be a better person for it.

And so we've come full circle - from a national tragedy to an emotional one; a story about a man and a woman who were so deeply in love that they couldn't see inevitability when it was staring them in the face.

I don't bear ill will towards you. I'm sad about what has happened but I know you had your reasons. I'm sure that someday you'll figure yourself out, meet someone, and be happy. Maybe you're already on your way there.

Maybe you'll realize in six months that you've made a huge mistake. I won't be there for you if that happens. I can't afford to be.

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So now I lay this story to rest. A story that spanned seven years of our lives, full of passion, tears, laughter, family, broken promises, and love. A story whose time has come and gone.

We'll learn from this experience and become stronger people. We just have to make sure we don't gloss over the time we spent together. Thank you for the wildest, most passionate, most emotionally-immersing seven years I've ever lived. Here's hoping the next seven have a better ending...for you and for me.

Cheers.

A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I just want to preface this by saying that if you're not a fan of lengthy stories then this isn't the one for you. This is a long one (that's what she said).

My mind was wandering tonight (as it is prone to do) and I started thinking back to my college days. I thought back to those carefree times when all I had to worry about was finishing a paper before the deadline, picking a bar to drink at for the night, and choosing which cool post-ironic tee I was going to wear to class that day.

But you know what? I don't miss it.

A lot of people wish they were back in college. They talk about the past as if it is some mystical treasure that they had in their hands but let slip out of their grasp. Perhaps it's a desire to go back to a time when they could shirk real responsibility and the real world in general. Actually, strike that; there's no "perhaps" about it; when your only true goal for 4 years is to get laid as often as possible, life is admittedly pretty sweet.

I'm wondering what makes some people turn the corner and be ok with their post-college lives while others can't let go. Or better yet, even if a person's post-college life sucks, at what point did they simply outgrow that part of their life? Is it a gradual fading for some people or does it hit everyone all at once? Personally, I can actually pinpoint the exact night I graduated from missing college.

It was a couple of years after I graduated from UMass. I'd been living with Kristen in Salem and that clearly wasn't going well, so I moved back home in October of 2005. A couple of weeks after that I was invited out by a couple of college friends who were still living in Amherst. I made plans to stay with a friend for the evening as she had an extra futon.

Anyway, so I go out there for the evening and meet up with these people at a downtown bar. We have a great time, we're drinking and laughing, and as the night goes on I start to feel really old. I was only 24 at the time but there was something about seeing freshmen and sophomores with fake IDs drinking at the stools next to us that really unnerved me. It was as if I was some creepy old man who'd wandered into Super Happy Fun Toddler Story Land and all that was missing was some terrifying representation of the sun with a baby's face protruding out of it.

Eventually my friends and I wandered Main Street, sampling the many different bars that Amherst has to offer. The group of us got split up and went separate ways. Once we'd had our fill of booze I called my friend with the futon to make sure she was back at her place. No answer on her cell.

I called her apartment. Still nothing. I called the cell of a mutual guy friend who had also been out with us and was with her group at the time. Nothing.

Ok then, I thought to myself, I guess I'll just drive over to her place and wait for her there. So I drove.

I reached her place at around 2:30 in the morning. I knocked on her door, but got nothing. The lights were out and it didn't look like anyone was home.

Fair enough, I thought; she might be dropping people off and then coming home. I walked back to my car since it was a bit chilly outside. And I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

(Sorry for the shitty, predictable, Plaschke-like narrative; it'll be over soon, I promise.)

I fell asleep in my cold car waiting for her to get back to her apartment. At 4am I was awaken by the sound of a door slamming. I looked out my window to see her kitchen light go on. I made a break for her place and knocked frantically. After some hushed whispers and about 30 seconds of waiting, the door opened.

She looked surprised to see me. So did my mutual guy friend, who at this point had removed his shirt and was sitting on the futon. The same futon I was supposed to have been uncomfortably lying on hours before while I'd be trying in vain to sleep.

Awareness of the situation eventually dawned on her when I asked where she'd been. Of course I didn't need to ask that question; my intuition told me there was a back seat involved at some point. She took me out into the hall and explained to me that I wouldn't be able to stay at her place that night because she had "company". I lost my shit at that point and not-so-calmly explained to her that I was supposed to be her company this evening. (Although not in the same sense, of course - I just wanted to lay on that filthy futon for a while.)

She shrugged, apologized, and let me in to get my stuff from the living room. On the way out, I stared daggers at our "mutual friend" who had dicked me over in order to dick her over. I walked out into the nippy air, put my stuff in my car, and thought things through.

It was 4:30 am at this point; what were my options? I could call someone else who most likely wouldn't be awake and might be pissed I called them at such a late hour. I could try sleeping in my car for a couple of hours and then head home. I could kill my friend and her fuck-buddy and make it look like a lovers' quarrel followed by a murder-suicide.

None of those really appealed to me. Well, one of them did but I dislike the idea of 40 years of forced buttsex behind bars. So I started my car and headed back east. I spent the next 2 hours on the road trying to stay awake. I cranked Pantera's Far Beyond Driven followed by System of a Down's Toxicity. I rolled the windows down and sang along to every song, straining to keep my eyes open.

I made it home at about 6:30am. I pulled into the driveway, stumbled out of my car, and willed my body inside. My dad was about to leave for work as I was walking in the door.

"Rough night?"
"Don't want to talk about it. Going to bed. Hold my calls. Good night."

Except it came out as "Donwannatalkboutitgoinbedholdcallnight".

I woke up that afternoon with the realization that I'd simply outgrown college. It was a sad feeling, but in a way it was completely liberating. I didn't have to worry anymore that I'd let something good slip away. I'd lived that life and now I was ready to live the next part of it. Out of despair, hope.

The great memories of college will always be in my heart and mind. Those were some of the happiest days of my life. I refuse to live the rest of my days with the mindset that it's all downhill after graduation day. There are always new milestones and new memories and new people. There is always an adventure to take part in, one whose lasting impression will not rub out the experiences I had at UMass but will enhance and expand upon them.

Growing up doesn't kill the old you; it just makes the old you better.

So, that's it. Just had to get that written down somewhere.

Now comes the question and answer portion: when did you outgrow college? Have you outgrown college? If so, was it a slow fade or an epiphany? If not, why not? I'm interested to know, I really am.

Good night, everyone.