Committed

He was tall, kind, gentlemanly but not in an overbearing-please-love-me kind of way (just enough to come pick you up but you can open your own car door, this is the 2000s you know). He got my jokes, knew enough about when to just be quiet and look out the window, he was introspective. He had an ex-wife who I had graduated from high school with, a fact that bothered me until he told me the whole story, and then I never thought about it again. I hate secrets. He taught me how to drive a stick in a red 1960s British sports car in the pounding rain. He liked reading, knew how to build a fire in three minutes flat, chopped his own wood, and had the deep baritone of a real grownup.


Our second date was at my favorite Ethiopian restaurant where I gulped glasses of Gouder ('French wine is good, Ethiopian wine is Gouder') as he told me about his marriage (too soon! my brain screamed, losing all inhibition with itself as the wine flowed and my severe attempts to avoid judgment fell by the wayside), his divorce (she's an idiot!-- lips still silent as neurons fired furiously), and the six month hermitage that brought him to the chair in front of me: happy, well-adjusted, having life lessons under the belt and a clean conscience to rest next to him on his pillow every night. He was unbearably attractive.

We moved further west and found ourselves drinking IPA at a tiny British bar in Post Alley, nestled into a leather loveseat as the aproned waiter gently complained about Seattle and I read him poems by Oscar Wilde.

He closed his eyes from first verse to closing, a half-smile resting on his face. This pleased me, and I stole glances in between lines, ostensibly for poetic effect but actually to watch the words had as they filled the air between us and settled themselves into our laps.

He kissed my forehead and I was entranced, my fingers intertwined with his as I twirled through the soft glow of wine in my stomach and Christmas lights clouding my vision.

When I woke up in the morning, I knew that it would never happen again.

What kind of girl do you think I are? No. Really. I should be committed to some kind of asylum.

best gym class in history

The definition of humor is rollerskating with 30 first graders who have never put on skates before. Pure bliss.

What we have done.

I met Haley freshman year in the dorms when she moved in late. Our first conversation, she will tell you went like this:

Me: We're going to play some tennis, do you have any extra tennis balls?
Haley: (dripping sarcasm) How convenient, I have this whole drawer full of tennis balls right here!
*pause*
Me: So do you?

Since our first awkward conversation, we have done a lot of things. I bought a ticket to Guatemala, spurred on by her mysterious existence in Central America that I knew nothing about and my urge to speak Spanish next to her again. I started thinking about the things we have done since we met. And we seem to have spent quite a lot of time sitting outside and talking about things that break our hearts.

When we first became confidantes, she was shedding copious tears on our dorm room balcony over a high school love that was ending without her permission. I brought a blanket and some silence.


A couple of autumns later, we sat outside on a dusty brick ledge in the middle of Spain, carefully eating falafel and trying to wrap our minds around the fact that Kyle was dying.

I like us because we talk about things that are true and things that are real.