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Yesterday, I worked late, trying to catch up from my three days off. I have this theory about time off. If I�d taken a whole week or more, people would say, �Oh, she�s out for a whole week�never mind. I�ll find the information somewhere else.� Then, when I come back to my desk, it�s bad, but not terrible. When I only take a couple days, people figure I�ll be back soon, so they might as well just wait and they leave me their paperwork or the voicemail or the email, asking me if I could take care of their needs as soon as I get a chance when I return.
The moral of this story? Take the whole damn week, boys and girls.
By the time I got home last night, I was exhausted. I said goodbye to Chris, who was on his way to the mall to look for birthday presents, then crashed on the couch with my lovely and nutritious dinner (a bottle of Stewart�s root beer and a bowl of popcorn) and settled in for an evening of channel surfing. I had planned to unpack and clean the apartment. Neither of those things happened. Not at all.
On some random cable station, I found The Big Chill. I had to stop and watch for a while. The last time I saw this movie, I was in New Hampshire with the Artboy and ten of our other friends for New Year�s Eve. We had rented this huge, old house in Jackson for the long weekend. The second night we were there, we built a huge fire in the fireplace and all piled onto the floor in front of the TV, tucked in with a zillion pillows and blankets. Scotty K put The Big Chill in the VCR in honor of Glen. Not that Glen killed himself, but the movie is about a group of friends gathering to honor and remember another friend and rekindle their friendships, and that�s how Scott saw our weekend. Which, in a lot of ways, it was.
Funny, though. Watching the movie last night, I thought back to that weekend. I spent a lot of time with that group of people feeling more like JoBeth Williams� husband in the movie (the one who leaves early to go take care of the kids), or like Meg Tilly�s Chloe, the girlfriend other that no one quite knows how to deal with.
The Artboy was�still is�one of the �cool people.� Being an artist gave him a ticket into a different social circle. Being part of the Boston music scene made him one of those people who knows everyone. He would walk up to the bar at the Middle East and the bartender would give him his drink without his having to order it. She just knew what he wanted, and brought it, and half the time wouldn�t make him pay for it. He has a congenial air and a huge capacity for small talk on almost any subject with almost any person. He found a way to make not having a 9 to 5 establishment job work for him, although most of the time he had no money in his pocket. Not that it mattered�there was always someone around who wanted to buy him a beer, and he knew all the people at the door. He�d read all the right books to sound smart without sounding pretentious and had a broad base of musical knowledge. He could actually tell you about the artists on the walls of the MFA and the ICA, both the old, dead ones and the new ones no one else had heard of. He�s the kind of guy we all want at our parties.
And without malice or knowledge on his part, he made me feel dowdy and stupid and small.
I was never at ease in our relationship. I spent five years being afraid that any day, he�d look at me and realize I was holding him back. I was like Rob in High Fidelity to the Artboy�s Charlie. Not good for the self-esteem level, all that feeling unworthy.
We talked about it on many different occasions, the Artboy and I. He grew increasingly frustrated with the fact that I couldn�t get past the feeling. It was magnified at the gallery openings. I would look at the art on the walls and the people who had created it, and inside, I�d be the uneducated, stupid Jennifer. Outside, I�d become the rude and antisocial Jennifer. Eventually, I�d be the already went to bed Jennifer. And he�d start off as the concerned boyfriend Artboy and work his way toward the fed up Artboy.
Of course, at the end of the night, he�d crawl into bed, high on the success of the evening and whatever pot they�d smoked in the back room and wake me up. I always enjoyed the evening much more when it was a vicarious experience. His recounting would settle the score, and when we�d finally fall asleep, we�d be okay again. I always said we could have conquered the world, if we could have done it alone from his twin extra-long bed.
When I started dating the Boyfriend, I stopped being that frightened, unhappy, insecure person. Part of what the Artboy saw when he landed on my doorstep, crying and begging me to take him back, was the confident, happy, together person I�d managed to become.
A few months later, once I�d made my choice and the Artboy was back in my life full-time, I looked in the mirror and the sad girl looked back at me.
I don�t know why loving the Artboy involved losing myself, or why loving the Boyfriend doesn�t. I�ve come up with a few theories, but none of them feel right to me. I guess, though, that the why doesn�t really matter. What matters is that I no longer feel like I have to compromise myself for my relationship.
This weekend will be a busy few days: dinner with Ilana tonight, breakfast with Carla tomorrow (yay!) before a Longaberger meeting with my mom, a birthday party in the late afternoon, and a bridal shower on Sunday (I actually barely know the bride, but my cousin is throwing it and she needs help). Somewhere in there I need to unpack and straighten out my house. Maybe. If I get to it. There�s always Monday night!
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