Leo

For the past nine months, it's been Leo.  Leo is this Mexican man with whom I've just recently broken up. We've broken up and gotten back together 3 times already and it's getting old. I don't know why I didn't just leave him when he told me the 1st time we split: "I don't think I'm going to be able to love you," two months into it.  I cried and laughed simultaneously.  "Of course it's not fair that I keep you, you must go, and Thank You for being so honest," I replied earnestly.

The other day I was driving home and thought, "I miss the essence of Leo.  I miss what makes him him.  His essence - which is this formless, shapeless, colorless, odorless thing - is his spirit.  The spirit of Leo."

I think he was tired of being under pressure to love me - that's how crazy I can be, expecting someone to love me when they do not naturally do so on their own.  What kills humans is the need for the "I" or the "me" to be established, addressed, loved; I was selfish to expect something from him that was never, is never going to happen.  So self-destructive.

I thought that if he really does care to remain friends, true friends, then we need to start with the truth.  "Hi Leo, I need to tell you something.  The past nine months have been a lie.  I'm going to be a nun.  I knew from even before I met you it was never going to work out."  Ouch. Ok, maybe not that in depth.  I need some tact.

So why start relationships anyway? one asks.  Good question.  Anyone have an answer?  I don't know, perhaps to ease the moments of loneliness; or to have someone who does care for you; or to feel needed in someone's life; or to have someone for whom you can express love towards... I am reminded of Frank McCourt's pithy advice, "Contention is worse than loneliness."

It hurts to see wedding bands and baby strollers.   "Why can't I have that? Why can't I love someone, too? Why can't I have kids?  Why can't some man love me?"

I think I'm going to start every new male friendship I can by establishing this fact about me; if someone chooses to be my friend and support me through it, cool, but if another chooses to hit the ground running, cooler.  They and I are better for it.

Some part of me still misses him.  Some part of me tried to love him enough for the both of us. Some part of me was never honest with him.  Some part of me was never myself with him.  My friend Lopez noticed this about me, "Why can't you accept the fact that you were in love?" "Lopez!" I screamed, "If I were truly in love, then we'd be together!"  He retorted, "Yes, but there are degrees of it."

He was right.

This truth remains: the opportunity for communion never occurred because I never let it.

And who am I to not be myself with others?  Why should I live a life without integrity?  Why should I live out a false identity?  I don't have much time; I had better begin now...

Graduate School

What am I supposed to do? What plans does God have for me? Is this the right path? How & when will I know?.... "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your future."

I take the GRE tomorrow.

I'll be fine.
I'll do fine.
I'll be fine.

My friend Janet said, "Take the test with full confidence; answer all the existentialist questions later."
But this comes from a woman who scored a 700 on both the Verbal and the Quantitative.
What if I get a 700 combined?

I did a pro/con list for staying in the teaching profession. I reenacted a similar list for attending graduate school. The ratio of pros between teaching to graduate school is 2:5. The ratio of cons between teaching and graduate school is 7:2.

I'm just afraid that it is me wanting this and not God. During prayer, I implored God to show me what it is He wants for me so that I may learn of it, so that I may want it too.

Wait For It

"When I planted my pain in the field of patience it bore fruit of happiness." - Kahlil Gibran.

So when I met this man named Eric at Rumba, he was devastatingly charming. "And you're single? I don't want to step on any toes here..." I asked him as we salsa-ed on the dance floor. A relationship with a woman was something for which he lacked time... though I wonder if he ever felt lonely in London?

Hundreds of e-mails, MSNMessenger chats, webcam video calls, international text messages, $25 calling cards later, we were on our way to a euphoric long-distance relationship.

His most romantic e-mail ended with these lines:
"If you keep bringing down theses barricades I’ve set up all around, you may eventually find me. I’m waiting for you there."

Ahh, lovely...almost as if he was some sort of sacrificial oyster containing a serious pearl, just waiting to be discovered, taking a big risk in that tumultuous sea called love.

He visited three weeks later, not only to run the Chicago Marathon, but to spend time with me. Days of blissful interaction followed. I immediately broke my piggy bank to visit him in London one month later over the four day Thanksgiving break.

"You're going so far in such a short time," upbraided my mother.

But he's taking me to Paris, I retorted. In fact, he's booking the train tickets right now. It's only $90 and 2 hours away from London.

Paris failed - "The tickets are $300 for that weekend! Can you believe it?" - he sighed into the phone. Oh. Ok. Instead, I showed up at Heathrow on a Thursday morning and we took two trains and a bus to Chelsea Manor Street, apartment 14. Everything went fine until Friday night.

A prior engagement with a business school friend on Friday night just could not be moved. He told me he'd be home by ten; when he didn't arrive by midnight and didn't call, I started dialing contacts from his land line. "Hello? Are you there? I'm Eric's friend. Do you know him?" Laily, who, at first, I thought was his sister, was on the line. "Oh right, well, sorry to bother but do you know where Eric might be right now? No. Well could you call him for me? Um, ok. Do you have his cell? No. Well, here. Have him call me at the house, I'm very worried about him. He said he'd be home two hours ago."

Laily, it turns out, was his girlfriend of a year. Who, incidentally, showed up outside his apartment door the next morning with a thermos of coffee, a plastic bag of food, and a female friend of Indian descent, all to keep her company during the camp-out. Sad, but can you blame her?
Turns out, there was another woman in Eric's life. On the day I arrived, he had texted her with a message saying he was unavailable for the weekend. When I told Eric that I made a desparate phone call for help last night, and that I had spoke with a woman named Laily, he paled. "Oh, that's why she's here.

He disappeared with her for the next two hours. Upon his return, I had showered, packed my bags, zipped up my boots and coat, and was making 1-800 phone calls to United Airlines. "It will cost you $1,610 if you leave tonight, ma'am. Your booking requires a Saturday night stay." Dear God.

He apologized, cried, lamented, complained. In short, he acted like a big baby: "I don't want to talk about it anymore." Excuse me? You've just had a woman show up claiming to be your girlfriend and you don't want to talk about it? Scum.

He tried to make it up to me. Took me to dinner at a cozy coffee house. Escorted me to a Brazilian lounge. Initiated a "talk" with me about our relationship, which conversely, if it ended well, would coax me into sleeping with him. I headed for the floor with a pillow and my coat. When I asked for a blanket, he grumbled underneath his, "Are you stupid?" I opted for the colder alternative.

During the night, I got up, toileted, and decided to make sure I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but I needed some evidence to confirm. I'll admit that I accessed some very personal information. His cell phone text messages to her dated back to before we met. "I miss you, too," "I can make you come in five minutes," and, "In Paris, France. I'll call you later," (which occurred while I was using his bathroom) are shining stars. But top honors go to the missive sent to her the day he landed home after visiting me in Chicago, stating, "Landed!" - 9 hours after saying good-bye to me.

Damn.

Honorable Mention goes to one more devastating episode: My dating game appearance. That's right. I was a contestant on a dating game with The Social Network. It's where "Chicago Professionals Get Connected!" Read: if you're over 35 and still single, you have a desperate interest in this club. I was lucky to find 4 other people who were 34 1/2.

I sat on stage with two other women, put on a blindfold, and answered goofy questions like, "If you were a cheese, what kind would you be?" or "Have you ever gone home with anyone on the first date?" and "If you were a car, what sound would you make when I start your engine?" Thankfully, I wasn't chosen. Thankfully, I didn't have to humor a "free date" with him. Thankfully, I left after twenty mortifying minutes.

So, in reference to Gibran, I plant my pain in the field of patience. And then, after a certain amount of time deemed appropriate to God, happiness prevails. Right?

Ruminations

Imagine you are rollerblading along the lake, circa 9 pm on a muggy, July Sunday night, and you see a shopping cart filled to the brim sitting next to a long wooden bench with a homeless black man on the edge of it. Now imagine having a mere 5-6 seconds to assess the situation: he is slowly, deliberately unwrapping something crinkly, hmm looks like a sandwich, he appears to be 'settling in for the night.' And now quickly focus back to the bike path you're on and try to ignore the disgruntled, "hey, watch outs" you've received while not-ignoring him. And then think to yourself: Well, he chose to be homeless. And then slap yourself!!

Or not. Instead think: Well, maybe his only choice was to become homeless.

What causes poverty? Why do people become poor? Or homeless? Is it their choice? Do they have no other choice? Are they down on their luck? Are they mentally incapable? Are they emotionally unemployable? Are they addicts? Did they decide to become like this? Were they born into it? Are they parasites existing on the fringes of society? Aren't they people, just like you and me?

I'm tired of responding to poverty on a personal, emotional level. ("Oh, poor things.") I crave a more critical response to poverty ("Well, it's complex, see..."). I cannot continue to feel sad for, pity, hand a dollar to, look away. What are the forces in our society that tolerate this type of existence? And why doesn't anyone do anything to change them?

In light of that, I'm applying to grad school. I'm tired of spending my time and energy on things that are not directly related to my future, i.e. lesson plans, curriculum meetings, department concerns, staff development, summer workshops, etc. The list goes on and on. Yes, Mayor Daley said, "Let's be honest: all the poverty programs in the world will never match the impact of a quality education" which is why I'm teaching in the first place.

But in the second place, I'm done with teaching.

Now imagine this: Your clock blinks 9:38 a.m. on a sunny Wednesday morning. Your bedroom window is ajar and by this time, you've already been awakened by the 7:30 garbage truck in the alley. Your eyes are closed in an attempt to steal some last few minutes of zzz's and outside you begin to hear the sound of rubber wheels grating over the unstable cement path. This sound is accompanied and almost overwhelmed by a second sound: vibrating metal clashing violently against the shaky ground. A shopping cart, you think to yourself. Which is being pushed by a homeless person, no doubt. Oh no, here we go. What to do? Do I a) run out there with a freshly baked apple pie? Better yet, b) run out there with the pie and leave it on TOP of the dumpster and then run away, yeah! or c) Run out there with the apple pie, leave it on the top, and then wait in a dark corner for him to eat it and then introduce yourself at that exact moment, face-to-face with a smelly, dirt-ridden, apple-smeared face homeless dude. The shining moment comes when I ask this man the question, "Why are you homeless?"

Updates:

• I'm applying to grad school and now have to take the damn GRE.
• Why should I date if I'm never going to find "the one"? Aren't I wasting his/my time?