Spring Awakening

Chapter one of the novella, zenOPHOBIA

I'm a spring baby. I think I've told you before that the year feels like it really starts for me in Spring. Good things usually happen to me in the run up to my birthday; good news; good fortune; ideas finally come to fruition… Spring is when I'm at my best – or at least that's how it seems after months of autumnal uncertainty and wintry doubt. Spring rekindles me anew, restores my faith in mankind and life itself, returns my optimism, and brings back my social appetite in time for summer. I met you a few days before the dawn of spring and just walking over to you and saying hi felt like the most natural thing to do, as did the talking afterwards… and ever since.

Natural and comfortable. Naturally comfortably. That's how I feel around you – comfortable. That's what I feel in your company – comfort. Comfortable. But progressively… gradually, even comfortably… with the comfort, came… fear.

Hmm… Fear…!? I'm not sure how it snuck in there, but it's certainly there. Unspoken, unacknowledged; like a huge elephant in the room we keep skirting around rather than address; like if we wait long enough, it'll just pack its trunk and return to the circus from whence it escaped. But even though we don't mention it, someone must be feeding it because it's getting bigger and soon we'll have to climb over it or remain on different sides of the room. And how will it ever get out…? How did it ever creep in, unnoticed? And when?

It was there before I told you about the crush. I was very comfortable around the last guy I had a crush on – the last real guy, not some superstar celebrity I suddenly realised was quite cute; and I mean the last real guy who was unattached. He was the friend of my older brother. He first met me when I was seventeen – I sat dangling my bare feet off a top bunk bed with my best friend as we perused a magazine together that lay open across our laps. There was a knock on the door and we chimed in unison for him to come in. So he did, and looked up at us and smiled. Told us my brother had asked him to drop by, seeing as he was visiting our university. And so he did. I didn't have a crush on him then. You don't instantly feel comfortable around someone you have a crush on – well, at least I don't. A couple of years later he kind of dated my best friend. A year or so after that I'd often visit him at the end of my working day. He literally lived across the road from where I worked. And I'd kick off my shoes and sit on the shaggy carpeted floor and we'd just talk about anything and everything. Naturally. Comfortably. Without fear. It was almost two decades later – the week of my brother's wedding, funnily enough – that I developed my crush. Though I never told him about it.

So we'd been out of touch for about ten years but picked up where we left off. Except now there was flirting, more teasing (or so it seemed) and whenever he was in London, he'd drop by and we'd go and get dinner, take in a movie, stay home and chat about everything and anything… He expressed an interest but I laughed it off. Such a flirt (him?), such a tease (me?). Always joking, us. He respected my implied wish to be untampered with and soon he began to tell me about the chicks he was seeing, ask me what they were thinking, what they expected him to do. And I'd listen, I'd hear, on one occasion even see. He emailed me the morning his daughter was born. I ribbed him about God's payback plan for breaking so many hearts. A few months later I got another email, this time from my brother, to say he was gone… A car crash. Shocked dumb, numb. It's silly, but I still emailed for a while, comforted by the fact that my missives didn’t bounce back with a delivery error message.

The shock gradually faded and then came the relief – relief that we'd maintained a friendship without… well, going there; that I'd escaped having to experience the kind of abandonment and pain that rightfully belonged to his newborn daughter and, even more so, his almost-bride. Then a few years after the relief came the regret… regret that we hadn't shared more than just jokes, private anecdotes and food; regret that we shared love without sharing love… not the contrived stuff of romance novels and Hollywood movies, but the naturally comfortable love of life, of living, of being alive, of sharing and experiencing those life affirming moments with each other… together. Intimately. Naturally. In comfort. Without fear. Without the power games and the manipulation. Without the need to formally announce a legal bond, a claimed stake, a togetherness sanctioned by family, friends and state… in the presence of God. In the presence of God, we were. We could just be. Him. Me. Sharing. Love. Without fear.

I hadn't noticed the fear creeping in then, either. Even after the regret I never recognised that there had been any fear. In fact, I've often been considered quite fearless and I even began to believe that I was. And so what goes around comes around… again – making its presence felt more strongly this time, messing with the comfortable comfort levels, urging me to pay attention this time.

So you and I talk, about anything and everything. Naturally, comfortably. I listen, I hear, occasionally even see, and try, at your request, to help you interpret the moves and thoughts of the chicks you see. Without equivocation I comment on each of their attempts to engage you with their big woman act… though, of course, the act making it clear that they are not. They play grown and sexy and I play old and wise… I listen to you, I hear and occasionally even see, the fear, anxiety, desperation, longing, loneliness, yearning, needing, wanting, begging, cajoling, and manoeuvring. The fear… fear… Fear, fear, FEAR! I see their fear that you'll succumb only to the flesh while they're still grown and sexy but never quite get around to announcing a firm bond, a claimed stake, a togetherness that can be sanctioned by family and friends… before they're too grown, and not quite as sexy… and they no longer need to act.

But, scoff though I may, I understand their fear – even though it drives me in the opposite direction. It drives me to affirmative inaction, an almost defensive stance. Any early suggestions of flirting, I laughed off, told you to behave. Now silly, now sage… Such a flirt, such a tease… You. Me. Being. Sharing. Jokes, anecdotes, food… And, let's be honest, there were certainly opportunities when I could have changed direction if I really wanted to – as far back as Miami, as recently as my last time in New York… even if just in the last moments of goodbye before hopping back into the waiting taxi – after a hug from you so tight it almost hurt, a whimsically planted kiss that landed awkwardly, not quite on your cheek but on the corner of your mouth… But such opportunities, offered in moments of restlessness, doubt, anxiety, frustration… well, they'd have seemed like reaching out to be saved; like clutching at straws that, in that moment, seem strong enough to keep me buoyed but, grasping tighter, flailing desperately, hoping for salvation, slowly, surely, eventually, drowning and dragging us both down. Better I learn to swim before jumping into deep pools. I smile as the TLC song, Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls, comes to mind.

And so what is the point of this exercise? What do I want from you? Don't worry, unless you really feel compelled, there's nothing you really need to say or do. I'm awakening the elephant from its uncomfortable slumber and sending it packing – back to the wild from whence it came.

Having foreseen, foretold and pre-empted possible future discomfort at the close, even if discrete, scrutiny of our relationship by others, upon self reflection I realise that being afraid of a friend, even unconsciously, is a silly thing to be. I'm not afraid of you now – but then, of course, I never was. I was just afraid of fear itself, and particularly afraid for me.

~ – ~

Now that you've "awoken the elephant" and "sent it packing," can we return to the business of being FRIENDS? I've experienced enough revelations and emotional outpourings in the last six months to last me a lifetime! But I do hope you feel "uncluttered" now for having gotten all that out, and we can move on congenially, minus elephant.

~ – ~

Well, I guess that’s that, then.

Reviews

[M. View]

This is a great read

[perfectlymetiKulous]

Lovely - absolutely lovely.
Such emotion and reality through your words... I can't think of one person who has been in love who hasn't experienced that.
Very eloquent and moving...