To follow up on the story I was telling in “Stuck in the Pressure Cooker” just now….
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In order to justify some of the goofball things he does (like drinking a whole fifth of Jack in one evening and letting his friend follow him around with a video camera), E always likes to say “Live life! We could die tomorrow!” So, the end of the letter I put with his stuff read like this:

Either way, I hope you do learn to stand up for yourself. I hope it works out for you and you get what you really want and need out of life. I hope you figure out what that is – because today might be the end of your life, or you might live for a hundred years. Today might be shit but the hundred years could be great. It doesn’t hurt to think of it both ways sometimes.

The end of the E story today is that I told him I wasn’t fighting for this relationship this time. I wasn’t fighting to get him back just to have this happen again, and if he wanted to try again with me then he was going to have to ask for it and make some serious changes. But I told his also that no matter how much he hurt me and made me cry, that didn’t make him stupid or hopeless or doomed to be a screwup for life. “You acted like a jackass,” I told him. “But even hurting me and hurting my feelings like this doesn’t mean you’re never going to be capable of doing or being anything good. Just remember that, okay?”

He nodded and we hugged for a long while, both of us holding back tears. “I’ll call you,” he said. “I promise, I’ll call you.”

I just got in the Jeep and didn’t say anything at all.

I tutor a high-school English student. We’ve been working together for a few months now, and last night she called me, bawling that since she was still getting a C, her parents were not happy with me and probably would not let her work with me anymore. This is of very little concern to me since the next words out of her mouth were about how her parents tell her she’s a failure, she’s not good at anything, she doesn’t work hard enough, she’s not smart.

I also happen to know that these parents pay me and pay other tutors to help their daughter with her schoolwork, to encourage and motivate her, to boost her grades and congratulate her when she does well – because they don’t do it themselves.

I do not like parents like that.

I went to The Restaurant this morning to drop off all of E’s stuff while he was doing lunch prep. I took everything, from his clothes and razors to his files off my computer and the copy of his interview in the local foodie magazine. I wrote him a three page letter, angry but mostly restrained, and tossed it in as well. We sat together on the bench in the parking lot behind the kitchen and talked for about half an hour. He looked like SHIT. I don’t think he’d shaved for five days, and his eyes were bloodshot above puffy circles. He sat with his head in his hands while I vented a little, then he started in again on the “I don’t deserve you” stuff. He says I have everything going for me, he has no future, he’ll never be able to get a better job, and so on.

Did I mention that he looked like shit? Did I mention that despite the fact that I have been cut to the core and still sort of want to punch him, I don’t want him to hate himself and I can’t listen to him talk like that? Last time he started beating himself into the ground and calling himself a loser and saying that’s why we couldn’t be together, he looked so miserable that I wanted to pet him. I petted him again this time and tangled my fingers in his curls. But this time I wasn’t telling him I loved him for who he is and otherwise reassuring him. This time…

“The only reason you should call yourself a piece of shit or say you don’t deserve me is because of the way you treated me. You have NO excuse for that. So if you don’t deserve me, that part is your own fault. And if you don’t see a future for yourself, it’s because you chicken out on everything. You chicken out on defending yourself to your dad, to BossMan… but I never, NEVER thought you would chicken out on me. If you have truly been open and honest with me for the last year, then the person I think I know does have a future and is smart enough to go after his dreams. But you don’t even have the guts to make yourself into what you say you want to be.”

“I just don’t know what I want, out of life, out of anything.”

“Because you have this image of yourself that everyone sees, you’re Mr. Crazy, anything on a dare, do whatever you want, and sometimes I think you even believe that’s who you are. But you come home most nights and tell me how your life sucks, how you hate the way everything is going for you… do you WANT to be that image that you say sucks so much? The image you have left over from college?** Or do you really want things to change?”

“No, I don’t want to hate my life but I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what I want out of life.”

“Quit being a chicken and listen to someone who believes in you then. I don’t care if you don’t want to date me or even if you never want to talk to me again***, but LISTEN to me this time. Everyone else believes in your image, in what you show on the surface – your friends see it as the funny boy and your parents see it as a fuckup. And I know you love him and will defend him through anything, and I barely know your dad, but I HATE him for the way he talks down to you and never takes you seriously because you were a crazy kid for awhile.”

It feels good to finally tell him what I think of his stuck-up bigot dad who walked out on his sons when they were 3 and 5 so they could grow up with all his money and none of his presence. He loves his dad and fears him even more.

I let loose one little tear, and he starts to make sounds like he’s choking. His face is turning bright red. “I hate him for it,” I continued, “because you idolize him. I hate that his low opinion of you is the way you define yourself.”

And that brings me back around to it. Parents. It wasn’t until I almost got married and met my ex-fiance’s whackjob mother that I really understood how good I have it with my family. I won’t bore you with the Leave It to Beaver details of my childhood, but it seems that understanding and supportive parents are a rare commodity these days. I’m not a mother and that’s all I’m going to give you by way of disclaimer, but how do you tell your child he or she is basically worthless? How can you ignore everything your child does right? How can you be completely uninvolved in your child’s life and expect someone else to do the work of loving your child, building his or her self-esteem, and creating a trusting relationship?

My student’s parents always knock her down and say she’s a disappointment. E’s dad never raised him up or believed in him in the first place. And they’re stuck, both of them, identifying themselves with the fact that their parents never expect them to succeed. My student is only 17 and still living at home with her parents, but E is almost 28 and it’s not much different for him being out on his own. I don’t believe parents are necessarily to blame for their children’s shortcomings (like utter rudeness to their girlfriends!) – especially when those children are grown – but it’s as though these parents have so little faith in their offspring that they don’t think that ANYTHING they do will stick in their kids’ heads, when actually it’s EVERYTHING that sticks. And when everything is negative like this…how do they expect these kids to turn out? If kids raised like this succeed in life, it will be in SPITE of their parents, not BECAUSE of them and their crock of reverse psychology.

I’ve tried to make them both feel better. I bet other people have too… but I wonder if anything anybody else says can really stick when you’ve had 18 years of crap built up before you can even get out of the house. If you put enough pressure on a piece of coal, it will eventually become a diamond. But when it’s a person…? When it’s a child…?

*I thought this was a fun pun on E being a chef and all. Hahaha, I made a funnie!
**Yes, this is the YouTube video I talked about in this post. May as well, eh? Doesn’t he look like Jim Belushi?
***Okay, yes I do, but this was for dramatic emphasis.

Here’s the end of the E story for today.

“Do you still love me?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t say it back any more since… everything. If you still mean it, I need you to say it.”

“I love you, babe.”

“I love you too.”

You simply must read Part I and Part II before you even THINK about reading this.

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Hijinks indeed. Followed by exhaustion. Cuddles. A few kisses. Cover-stealing. Normalcy.

7:15 pm: I stir. Now I know he’s going to ask me to take him home. We still haven’t confirmed anything, he’s still in need-to-think mode. I get up quietly, let the dog out, make her dinner and cat’s dinner, and let the dog back in. E is snoring and I sneak back into my room. I steal a blanket from him.

8:10 pm: He rolls over and starts to make mumbly wake-up noises.

“Roo shungr?”

“Huh?”

“Are you hungry?” he asks, almost incoherently.

This means he wants to leave the house and get food before I drop him off. The Last Supper. I want to lie and say no but in a half-asleep stupor I say yes. “What are you hungry for?”

“Talayna’s.”

HE WANTS FOOD DELIVERED! HE WANTS TO STAY EVEN AFTER THE HIJINKS! I play it cool. “I’ll call. What do you want?”

“Sausage,” he mumbles. “Is okay?” What a loaded question.

The good people of Talayna’s inform me that a Chicago-style sausage pizza and a six-pack of beer will be delivered in forty-five minutes. I do love me some beer delivery. I do love that his favorite pizza place is close enough to deliver and let this happiness last just a little longer. It’s going to fall apart when he leaves, I know it, so thank you, Talayna’s Pizza, for letting me enjoy it just a little longer.

Back in my room, he has commandeered my blanket once more, but he lifts his arm for me to crawl in. He’s flipping channels and we come to the beginning of “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” which, like most movies, I have not seen. He fills me in on the 15 minutes I have missed, and I get excited when I guess that the “X” is on the floor of the library before Indiana Jones sees it.

Everything becomes normal in the dark cocoon of my room. He plays with my hair. We eat pizza and drink beer while the movie plays on and I talk to the characters when I know something they don’t or when something doesn’t go my way. Our heads end up at opposite ends of the bed and we give each other footrubs. When the movie is over, I crawl up towards him and put the channel changer in his hand. (This is what a good girlfriend I am. I always give him the remote.) It’s 11:00 pm. He flips to SNL and watches the bit with Ricky Gervais and “The Office” before I hear him snoring. I make it through Weekend Update, dig for the remote under the covers, and turn it off.

“Slarmsef? he mutters. “Ftooworksevn.”

“Yes.” This one I understand. “I set it for six-fifteen.”

“Ffmph.”

We sleep. In the morning it’s still normal. Normal cursing of the alarm, normal waiting for the bathroom, normal sleepy eyes and his lovely messy hair. The only thing wrong is that I don’t have any clean clothes for him because they’re all in the back of the Jeep, and we both know why. We drive and listen to our normal Sunday morning radio station because they play bluegrass. He wraps up in the blanket I keep in the backseat because he’s always cold in the morning.

I pull up to his house and suddenly normal is gone, and it’s The Moment of Truth. He leans into my shoulder and sighs.

“You still need time to think.” It’s a statement, not a question.

He nods.

“What happens now?” I ask. “Are we or aren’t we? Are you going to call me?”

“I’m going to call you,” he says into my sleeve.

I tip up his chin and make him look me in the eye. “Sooner or later?.”

“Sooner.”

“I love you.”

His only reply is a light kiss, and he gets out of the car. I watch him walk toward the house, and on the porch steps he turns around, waves at me like he does every morning, and smiles a little. I wave back.

I suppose I still have a boyfriend. I fought and won this battle; we’ll see about the war.

You simply must read Part I first.

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“I don’t think I love you enough,” he says.

I am turning right and hit a curb so hard that he almost smacks his head on the window. “You don’t THINK you love me enough,” I say blankly.

“Not to marry you.”

“Not to marry me right now, you mean.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to marry you right now. I don’t know if I love YOU enough to marry you right now.”

“So you see what I mean then?”

“I see that you’re full of shit, either right now or for the last eight months when you’ve been saying you love me, saying you could stay with me always, telling me that we’re a team, telling me the sky’s the limit for us, telling me opposites like us can be good for each other.”

“Look – ”

“I’m looking,” I say sarcastically.

“I mean don’t run over that guy.”

He’s trying to hold my hand. I push him away and make my mean face. “How long have you been feeling this way? Because you told me Tuesday that I was the best. That you were so happy. Are you a liar then, or has someone besides me been in your ear the last couple of days?” I pull into my driveway. “Was it Craig, telling you that if you love a girl you should get married, like he’s going to? Or your dad, telling you all women skip birth control pills so they can get knocked up and trick you into getting married?”

“I talked to both of them, yeah. But – ”

“And you didn’t talk to me. Neither one of them know ME. And you’re making decisions based on what they say about me. Not what YOU know about me, not what you know about us.”

We get out of the car and walk into the house. The living room is a mess so we go sit in the bedroom. I can tell this makes him uncomfortable and I don’t even care.

“We’re not everybody else,” I continue, pissed and still crying. “Why do you let anyone else’s assumptions get in your head like this, and then dwell on them for three days? If you want to know what I want from you, ask ME.”

“I just needed some time to THINK. I didn’t mean to not talk to you but I had to think about this on my own.” His face is getting red and his eyes are watering.

“I can respect that you needed to think. But I can’t respect the fact that you left me – ME as an individual – completely out of the equation during this all-important thinking. We’re a team. And I’m kicked off the team now, am I?” Still bawling.

“No, that’s not it at all, it’s just – ” He stops and runs his fingers through his hair, grabbing it as he flops down on the bed face-down. He looks so miserable. I am seized with the sudden urge to pet him. I want to scratch his head like I always do when he’s upset. So I do. He looks up at me. “I just don’t know.”

I stop crying and sniffle for a moment into my tissue. “Don’t you love the life we have?” I ask quietly.

He nods and turns his head a little, the way he does when he wants me to scratch a different spot. I oblige, tangling his curls in my fingers. He likes that too. I can feel myself breaking inside.

I told myself on the way over to his house that if he said we were done, I’d just go. I’d give him the bag of his stuff and I would leave and move on. And here I am, practically begging for him to reconsider. Am I just afraid of being alone then, that the prospect of life without somebody scares me so much? Or is it that life without HIM scares me so much that I will fight tooth and nail, pretty much begging him to look at this again? Am I doing what I think he’s doing, looking at people in general, or am I doing what I tell him to do, looking at US for who we are?

I lay down on the bed next to him. He turns and we look at each other through reddened eyes.

“I don’t want you to do this,” I whisper. I mean it.

“I just don’t know what to do.”

“Do you want me to take you home?” I hold my breath, please-say-no, please-stay-and-remember-how-good-this-is-and-don’t-leave-it, don’t-leave-me. He shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, and says nothing. I move my fingers, still scratching, behind his ears, down his neck a little, onto one shoulder. I can feel him relax a little. This is what we’ve always done, this is how it should be.

We talk more, laying on the bed and sitting on my porch, then back to laying on the bed. More conversation in the same vein. I tell him he deserves to be with a good person and be treated right. He’s insecure. I point out that I’m no angel. He’s quiet. I tell him that I talked to K, that she and P come from such different backgrounds but they’ve been together three years and made compromises because they love each other. And they’re so good together, we both know that. He ponders this.

“I need time.”

“What does that mean for me? Am I just waiting, or am I going on with my life and just seeing if you come back?” I’m terrible at loose ends and he knows it.

“We’ll talk, we will. We’ll be with each other, I just need to think about all of this.”

What else can I say? The dead horse has been beaten to a pulp and the vultures are circling. “All right.” (5:01 pm)

We stand up, and I have to say something else. “I want you to kiss me.” It just spills out of my mouth. He hugs me, as though that could be enough. I lean into him and he pulls me against his chest, my head on his shoulder. He pushes me back and I don’t let go, my eyes starting to brim with tears again. “Just kiss me once, if you really love me like you say you do, and then go do your thinking. Then go.”

He kisses me. And kisses me. And hijinks ensue.

You simply must read Part III now.