Je ne suis rien sans toi
I had to use a translator to translate that title. I had been talking to Alex and he tossed that off to me before he left. It's funny, but I sometimes think as if I am nothing without HIM, yet he feels the same way. The poor boy had to deal with a very frayed, very irritated, very intense woman for a few minutes this evening, yet he was polite and sweet as per usual. I have no idea how he can always be so patient with me, really. See, he had been around for the weekend, and then on Sunday night I had to drop him off in the Spartanburg area so that he could get his ride back (his ride on the way here dropped him off on Friday at Tri-County). We had agreed that we would be online at 10p last night so we could say good night to each other. However, when I went online he wasn't there. I waited an hour and then totally freaked out. See, if this had been the ex or any other of the guys I had ever dated, I would have shrugged, grunted, and said: well, he just forgot. Then I'd have not given it a second thought and headed to bed. But Alex has a very rare trait: what he says he does, period. There IS no "I forgot." Therefore, I was forced to conclude that either he didn't make it home or his net was down. There's no phone in his apartment and he has no cell phone, so the net being down would mean he had no way of contacting me whatsoever.
Well, I thought about how late at night it was and I wondered if his ride had crashed the car. Fretting more, I barely slept last night. By this morning, I had no word from him still and I panicked. On the way to school I pondered what I would do without him. I tried to picture every other man I knew, and I realized that I wanted NONE of them. Once upon a time I thought there was one man who had captured all of my heart and then crushed it. I believed that if I could have any man, that man would be the one I'd want. I had stated in a short story I had begun but never finished once that a woman has three men in her life: the man she marries, the man she should have married, and the man she can never forget. The man that Amanda has quaintly named "Bellybutton" I always considered the man I could never forget. He's the only man that ever left me. Every other man *I* was the one who left. I don't know if that was a major part of why he was so hard to shake, but we circled each other for quite some time after the breakup. Every girl I know can relate to that issue! You love him, he doesn't love you or at least acts like he doesn't, but he says just enough here....does just enough there...to make it impossible for you to forget him or get him out of your blood. Sigh. I really thought that I would be able to fall in love again but I'd never get the man out of my blood. But then I met Alex...
Alex had me intrigued from the moment we met. He didn't have me interested at all for the year we talked on the phone and on the net. I seriously was groaning when he came to visit because I felt that he would likely chase me around a table and I'd have to smack him down. Then I heard him call out my name in the airport, I turned around and...uuurrrgggggggg....oh god, it was instant. I spent a lot of time running from Alex because I didn't want another relationship so soon after too many nightmares. The final fall came all of the sudden in the summer of 2003, and ever since then I've been so completely smitten that I disgust myself!
So here I am visualizing that Alex is dead. I sniffed, hoping I was wrong. I wondered if anybody would know to contact me if he were dead. Then I thought about what I'd do. First, I entertained in my brain what I'd tell the kids. Ari and Jared would both sob. They consider Alex to be the "Bonus Dad," basically, so they'd be crushed. After soothing them, I just couldn't think of what else I'd ever do. I wondered what would happen to me with dating and I realized that even if Bellybutton came up and said, well, since you are available now, I want you, I'd turn him down. This feeling surprised me. I knew I was over him enough to have a good, healthy relationship with Alex, but I always thought that I'd never be able to shake him completely. It was in this moment, when I was projecting how I'd feel if Alex died, that I realized that I'd just go back to being a mom and that'd be that. I tried to visualize Bellybutton somewhere in my life, and I thought, nope...Alex's shoes are too big to fill. He can't do it. No man has ever hit my full list of criteria out of a man, and Alex fits MORE than my list. My sister laughed at Alex and told him, your plan is to make the bar so high that no man can ever jump it! And Alex had laughed and said, you have seen through me! It was funny at the time, but as I drove to school, I realized that it was the truth. HE DOES NOT ANNOY ME. I can't tell you how that is a big one alone. I've never dated a man for an extended period of time without him annoying me, but Alex is annoyance free. How could any man ever even come close?
Alex tells me he is younger than me because he was made especially FOR me. I think he's right...
Ok, so then I get to talk to Alex for a few minutes this evening because that's all he has in the computer center on the msn before it shuts down, and he knew this was a late day for me from school. Apparently his net service is down. The phone company did some work on the phone lines near his apartment and downed the cable modem accidentally. This means no internet is available in his apartment or in the other French girls' apartments either. He has no net access except at school until tomorrow night. Obviously, when he arrived late last night he couldn't hunt up a payphone nor use the net, and he had no phone. So, I'm glad he's not dead in a car wreck. I can't leave well enough alone, however. Instead of just relaxing instantly because I knew he was fine, I had to tense up and get snappish when talking to Alex. I couldn't just instantly be all right. By the time I calmed down, he had to leave the computer center because it was closing due to the time. Not only did he just blow off my irritated attitude, knowing it would pass and why it was there, but when it DID pass he instantly tried to squeeze in just how much he cared for me before he left the room. The lights were shutting down on him as he typed that last bit:
Je ne suis rien sans toi
Yes, Alex, and as much as it scares me, I believe the two of us DO make a whole...in the same way that my mom and dad, happily married for 44 (almost 45!) years--hey, they still hold hands and my dad gets my mom off the phone by pinching her ass--make a whole. Without each other, we are not as much. The sum is greater than the parts.
****
My daughter has a thousand talents, but reading is not one of them. I'm mystified. By seven (Ari's current age), I was reading H.G. Wells' Food of the Gods, The Invisible Man, and The Time Machine. I WANTED to read at a very early age. I still remember that moment when I was three and my mom had shut out the light without reading to me the new book she had bought (oh, the horror!) and how I turned the light back on and realized I knew what it said: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. That was the beginning of my love affair with reading. I consumed everything. I was four when my mom saw me sitting down with a copy of The Reader's Digest, thinking I was looking at the pictures. She knew I could read, but she assumed I was still on the primary books or somesuch. Then I started laughing out loud and read to my mom what I thought was particularly funny and she stopped in her tracks. I was made to skip a grade because the third day of Kindergarten, my teacher wrote the word "underwear" on the board, and this word made me giggle incessantly. She pulled me out of class; I thought I was in trouble. Nope, she just used that as a test of who could read! So she tested me herself and determined that she wanted me in second grade. My mom said no, but that I could be put in first grade. She felt two grades were too much. Anyway, my point of bringing this all up is to state: I knew how to read instantly and it was no effort. I never learned phonetics so I DO pronounce more words incorrectly than your typical woman who has had my level of education. Because it came to me so instantly, I have been clueless on how to help my daughter. She is a singularly average reader. She struggles with words and I have no idea what to do. My daughter is WAY more emotionally aware than I was at her age--the girl has a sixth sense about people. She's good at math (that'd be the blood of my math major mom, orthodontist dad, and three engineer siblings kicking in I suppose). But this reading thing is so hard for her to get, and she'd just prefer for me to read to her. She loves those moments, and so do I, all curled up on the sofa with something like Narnia that we both enjoy. These moments may be well and good, but I still feel like a Crap Parent. I keep having this sensation that my child is really smart, so it must be ME unable to figure out what to do to help her get where she needs to be! Sigh.
Well, I thought about how late at night it was and I wondered if his ride had crashed the car. Fretting more, I barely slept last night. By this morning, I had no word from him still and I panicked. On the way to school I pondered what I would do without him. I tried to picture every other man I knew, and I realized that I wanted NONE of them. Once upon a time I thought there was one man who had captured all of my heart and then crushed it. I believed that if I could have any man, that man would be the one I'd want. I had stated in a short story I had begun but never finished once that a woman has three men in her life: the man she marries, the man she should have married, and the man she can never forget. The man that Amanda has quaintly named "Bellybutton" I always considered the man I could never forget. He's the only man that ever left me. Every other man *I* was the one who left. I don't know if that was a major part of why he was so hard to shake, but we circled each other for quite some time after the breakup. Every girl I know can relate to that issue! You love him, he doesn't love you or at least acts like he doesn't, but he says just enough here....does just enough there...to make it impossible for you to forget him or get him out of your blood. Sigh. I really thought that I would be able to fall in love again but I'd never get the man out of my blood. But then I met Alex...
Alex had me intrigued from the moment we met. He didn't have me interested at all for the year we talked on the phone and on the net. I seriously was groaning when he came to visit because I felt that he would likely chase me around a table and I'd have to smack him down. Then I heard him call out my name in the airport, I turned around and...uuurrrgggggggg....oh god, it was instant. I spent a lot of time running from Alex because I didn't want another relationship so soon after too many nightmares. The final fall came all of the sudden in the summer of 2003, and ever since then I've been so completely smitten that I disgust myself!
So here I am visualizing that Alex is dead. I sniffed, hoping I was wrong. I wondered if anybody would know to contact me if he were dead. Then I thought about what I'd do. First, I entertained in my brain what I'd tell the kids. Ari and Jared would both sob. They consider Alex to be the "Bonus Dad," basically, so they'd be crushed. After soothing them, I just couldn't think of what else I'd ever do. I wondered what would happen to me with dating and I realized that even if Bellybutton came up and said, well, since you are available now, I want you, I'd turn him down. This feeling surprised me. I knew I was over him enough to have a good, healthy relationship with Alex, but I always thought that I'd never be able to shake him completely. It was in this moment, when I was projecting how I'd feel if Alex died, that I realized that I'd just go back to being a mom and that'd be that. I tried to visualize Bellybutton somewhere in my life, and I thought, nope...Alex's shoes are too big to fill. He can't do it. No man has ever hit my full list of criteria out of a man, and Alex fits MORE than my list. My sister laughed at Alex and told him, your plan is to make the bar so high that no man can ever jump it! And Alex had laughed and said, you have seen through me! It was funny at the time, but as I drove to school, I realized that it was the truth. HE DOES NOT ANNOY ME. I can't tell you how that is a big one alone. I've never dated a man for an extended period of time without him annoying me, but Alex is annoyance free. How could any man ever even come close?
Alex tells me he is younger than me because he was made especially FOR me. I think he's right...
Ok, so then I get to talk to Alex for a few minutes this evening because that's all he has in the computer center on the msn before it shuts down, and he knew this was a late day for me from school. Apparently his net service is down. The phone company did some work on the phone lines near his apartment and downed the cable modem accidentally. This means no internet is available in his apartment or in the other French girls' apartments either. He has no net access except at school until tomorrow night. Obviously, when he arrived late last night he couldn't hunt up a payphone nor use the net, and he had no phone. So, I'm glad he's not dead in a car wreck. I can't leave well enough alone, however. Instead of just relaxing instantly because I knew he was fine, I had to tense up and get snappish when talking to Alex. I couldn't just instantly be all right. By the time I calmed down, he had to leave the computer center because it was closing due to the time. Not only did he just blow off my irritated attitude, knowing it would pass and why it was there, but when it DID pass he instantly tried to squeeze in just how much he cared for me before he left the room. The lights were shutting down on him as he typed that last bit:
Je ne suis rien sans toi
Yes, Alex, and as much as it scares me, I believe the two of us DO make a whole...in the same way that my mom and dad, happily married for 44 (almost 45!) years--hey, they still hold hands and my dad gets my mom off the phone by pinching her ass--make a whole. Without each other, we are not as much. The sum is greater than the parts.
****
My daughter has a thousand talents, but reading is not one of them. I'm mystified. By seven (Ari's current age), I was reading H.G. Wells' Food of the Gods, The Invisible Man, and The Time Machine. I WANTED to read at a very early age. I still remember that moment when I was three and my mom had shut out the light without reading to me the new book she had bought (oh, the horror!) and how I turned the light back on and realized I knew what it said: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. That was the beginning of my love affair with reading. I consumed everything. I was four when my mom saw me sitting down with a copy of The Reader's Digest, thinking I was looking at the pictures. She knew I could read, but she assumed I was still on the primary books or somesuch. Then I started laughing out loud and read to my mom what I thought was particularly funny and she stopped in her tracks. I was made to skip a grade because the third day of Kindergarten, my teacher wrote the word "underwear" on the board, and this word made me giggle incessantly. She pulled me out of class; I thought I was in trouble. Nope, she just used that as a test of who could read! So she tested me herself and determined that she wanted me in second grade. My mom said no, but that I could be put in first grade. She felt two grades were too much. Anyway, my point of bringing this all up is to state: I knew how to read instantly and it was no effort. I never learned phonetics so I DO pronounce more words incorrectly than your typical woman who has had my level of education. Because it came to me so instantly, I have been clueless on how to help my daughter. She is a singularly average reader. She struggles with words and I have no idea what to do. My daughter is WAY more emotionally aware than I was at her age--the girl has a sixth sense about people. She's good at math (that'd be the blood of my math major mom, orthodontist dad, and three engineer siblings kicking in I suppose). But this reading thing is so hard for her to get, and she'd just prefer for me to read to her. She loves those moments, and so do I, all curled up on the sofa with something like Narnia that we both enjoy. These moments may be well and good, but I still feel like a Crap Parent. I keep having this sensation that my child is really smart, so it must be ME unable to figure out what to do to help her get where she needs to be! Sigh.
posted by Kira | 3:01 PM
3 Comments:
I'm glad he was okay... I always imagine those kinds of scenarios too. Like just tonight for example, when Anna was late getting home from her b-ball game, I imagined the bus going over the side of the mountain, all the teenagers trapped inside, the bitter wind raging all around them and... Well, it wasn't that. Something was wrong with the game clock, and they had to wait for it to be fixed. Oh well - at least they will know how much we love them!
I'm glad he was okay... I always imagine those kinds of scenarios too. Like just tonight for example, when Anna was late getting home from her b-ball game, I imagined the bus going over the side of the mountain, all the teenagers trapped inside, the bitter wind raging all around them and... Well, it wasn't that. Something was wrong with the game clock, and they had to wait for it to be fixed. Oh well - at least they will know how much we love them!
I'm glad he was okay... I always imagine those kinds of scenarios too. Like just tonight for example, when Anna was late getting home from her b-ball game, I imagined the bus going over the side of the mountain, all the teenagers trapped inside, the bitter wind raging all around them and... Well, it wasn't that. Something was wrong with the game clock, and they had to wait for it to be fixed. Oh well - at least they will know how much we love them!
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