Joanna Mitchell and I

The weight of a seemingly excruciating love

I can tell you a myriad of clichés that may describe how I feel about Joanna Mitchell; but then you would stop listening and walk away because I am sure you have heard all the “she is the love of my life” bullshit before or “I can’t breathe without her”, so I won’t throw that rubbish your way but I will tell you this: I fell in love with Joanna Mitchell 6 years ago,  and to this day, I have never dated her, never slept with her, and I have rarely even shown the courage to have a meaningful conversation with her.

    I met Joanna during my 18th birthday party, the party was memorable in itself without her to be honest; my band just released what was to be the first of several albums days before, I got my acceptance letter to Cal Arts, and my band even played the party that night. But when Joanna Mitchell entered through the front door of my already fantastic party all of my successes previously mentioned seem to splash into the bright blue pools that were her eyes(I didn’t promise I would never use clichés, I can’t help it…. She warrants some cheesy romantic praise, she is to beautiful to deny her that).

    The eyes were only what drew me to her, naturally when one falls in love with someone he or she needs more than eyes to do the trick, it was no different for me. I won’t lie to you and tell you she is this super hot 90 lb. blond haired blue eyed plastic girl(to me that type of girl is an extreme turn off, what intelligent male wants to date a Paris Hilton look alike) Joanna is better than that typical plastic image. Her hair is brown not blonde, she is by no means a large woman, but she has curves and she is not rail thin, but she does have those typical blue eyes you see in all the great love movies and read about in all the great romance novels.

    But this isn’t necessarily a romance story, romance stories are supposed to have happy endings, endings where a hero saves a damsel in distress from great perils and everyone lives happily ever after; I am no hero, she is definitely not in any kind of distress and whether we live happily ever after is probably a matter of perspective. So, blah blah blah she’s beautiful you get it so lets get back to the party. So as you may imagine when she walked through the doors of my house I immediately mentally and physically dropped everything I was doing and set my mind and eyes on her, that may sound like a big thing but I wasn’t  doing anything really physical at the time, and mentally I was just pretending to listen to our manager telling us how great the set was. So usually this is the part where I go up and talk to her and later we go to bed or if I want to be more romantic about maybe she was supposed to fall into my arms as we passionately kiss or she is supposed to drop some interest my way while leading me on a chase like some typical romantic comedies have it. Two factors kept this image from reality the first one is that I am somewhat of a reserved man to begin with(or just shy), but when a woman is involved those reservations or multiplied, and secondly and more predictable factor is that Joanna Mitchell was quite taken(or in a relationship) that night of my 18th birthday party.

    “Happy birthday Charlie!” was spoken to me in a rather loud voice by my girlfriend, waking me from my dreams of my 18th birthday party. Today was to be my 24th birthday party and Susan was not going to let me forget. “I can’t wait for tonight baby” she said in an over excited voice almost to the point that made me seem she might not mean it. But I knew Susan as over enthusiastic to a fault, picture the standard 23 year old college cheerleader and that is Susan in a nutshell. Not to say she was stupid, she had a 3.7 GPA at UCLA. I dropped out of school a few years ago, not because I didn’t like it or I wasn’t smart, but that dream of dreams came true and my band White City Lights signed to a label and we have been touring and producing albums ever since, we were not pop rock arena big, but we had a great underground indie following, and I think we preferred that anyway, we weren’t mega millionaires but we were able to make a good amount of money doing what we loved so in short we had no complaints. Susan was nice and I liked her, I really liked her, and she liked me, but she was not Joanna.

    Susan made all the arrangements for the party, she reserved an entire bar in Pasadena, called up one of the bands that toured with us to a set for me, and made sure the majority of my friends were attending(she called them all several times to ensure this to be the case, and as far as girlfriends go there is none better when than Susan when it comes to taking care of me.) So when she said “I can’t wait for tonight baby!” I could only tell her I felt the same and most of me did until I discovered something that would almost certainly emotionally complicate the evening’s festivities.

    I asked her who was going and she said again with an enthusiastic glee “I got a hold of so many people Charlie!” she continued “I was even able to get some of your old high school friends to come, Pat, Brian, Ashley, Erik, Joanna, Ja---. “Joanna is coming” I interrupted her with a quiet disposition even though internally a chaotic panic was consuming my innards. “Ya babe, she is a friend of Ashley’s and she says she remembers you pretty well.” “How do you know her” she said this time with more suspicion than enthusiasm. “She was dating one of the guys I used to jam with” I replied “so ya we used to hang out a lot”. I said this knowing not all of this was true, yes she was dating a guy I used to jam with(the man she was with on my 18th birthday), but no I did not hang out with her frequently, in fact I rarely saw her, I was terrified of her, I probably still am. Love terrifies me, and I was in love. I knew her and my friend Ashley were close, that is mostly when I did see her, when I was hanging out with Ashley. It was at least a couple of years since I last so Joanna, I was now very much looking forward to and loathing the moment my party would arrive tonight.

    As if I was waiting years for an event that was only hours away, Susan and I finally arrived to the bar that was hosting the celebration of my birth. There were plenty of people I had never seen before in my life at the establishment. Friends of friends and reporters from Paste and Spin magazines here to get a few words and pictures to put in the “what were your favorite artists doing this month” section of their magazine. The guys from the band were there and there friends were there and basically there were a lot of people I have never seen before.

    The bar itself, was just my kind of place, a subtle ambiance of mellow natural, earthly colors, with several corner lounge areas, and a real oak main bar. The place was nice and neat, but no way bousueis or expensive looking, which suited me. All this ceased to matter for in the corner of my eye I spotted Joanna Mitchell. I believe two things eat away at someone both man and woman more than anything known to us: overwhelming guilt and hidden love, the kind of love that has been trapped and encased for fear, or reason or probably both, this is how I felt when I caught her in my eye. I felt the ravenous hunger of that love taking pieces of my flesh, even my soul. The pain seemed unbearable and it was, as I result I decided to tell Joanna how I felt.

    Naturally Susan never left my side, up until that point I was fine with this, in fact I preferred it, now I would rather have her in another universe, not because of her but now that I was planning to release my forbidden feelings of affection, the other hungry feeling of guilt came into the mix and did not make my decision anymore pleasant. I asked Susan if we can head over to Joanna and Ashley(they seemed inseparable that night) and she as always with an enthusiastic smile said “of course honey!, you should greet all of your guests.” I was beginning to think Susan may love me. Which made me feel all the more guilty for what I was about to do.

    We walked over the corner of the bar one of those lounge areas I was talking about and Joanna and Ashley were in a group of several others. Susan went up to Ashley and gave her a good BFF type hug because they became pretty good friends after we started dating. Ashley and I became good friends a little after high school, I never was interested in her as far as a date or anything like that, she is one of those plastic type girls I was describing earlier, but for a time she thought I was into her which I found somewhat amusing and was one of the reasons I liked her as a friend, she definitely enjoyed attention so she probably was amused of her false speculations of my supposed attraction to her, this all being said, I am glad she was my friend at the time for no other reason except the one reason that she was friends with Joanna.

Susan then introduced herself to Joanna, and gave her the awkward not so BFF but suspicious hug to her. I stated talking to Ashley for a while and then with all the courage I had in my body I finally spoke to Joanna and asked if she was enjoying the party. She replied “very much so” and “the last album was great I must have listened to it at least a 100 times.” First I knew she liked some good music but I was still surprised she was fond of White City Lights as she made it appear and secondly if her eyes were the first thing that drew me to Joanna, her voice was probably the second. With a slight touch of English accent(from her early years in London) and her seemingly natural California sound it was like combining Elizabeth Hurley’s voice with one of those OC girls like Rachel Billson or something. And as a result her voice was fit for the muses. The funny thing is that I rarely heard it.

    I had to remain focused I was about to sweep the girl of my dreams off her feet, on my birthday, a story fit for all the romance novels in the world, and at the same time I was most likely going to obliterate another woman’s heart, it was safe to say I had quite an agenda ahead of me so it was time to start putting things into motion.

    But before I could say or do anything her voice of voices put things in perspective for me. “Charlie” she said “I want you to meet my fiancé Rob”. Now believe it or not I was not angry…. Well maybe I was but none of my anger was sent her direction, it was directed towards myself. How could I be so stupid! A woman such as herself, there was no chance she was single! I should have known better, save Susan and a few others, any girl I showed any interest in was almost assuringly taken.
    “Nice to meet you Rob” I said with a monotone voice showing no excitement for him or her. I still managed to give them my congratulations, but soon after I excused myself from the conversation I was having with Susan, Ashley, Rob, and Joanna and I promptly made my way to the bathroom and proceeded to vomit in the nearest toilet.

    During this disgusting episode I began to think or ponder, was I throwing up all my guilt, fear and poison that was this aching love? Or was this a sign that this was that feeling getting worse? I decided it was probably the latter and I still had to go on with my plans of confession, only merely altering exactly what I was going to say. I then escaped the bathroom stall, popped several pieces of gum in my mouth to mask my now rank breath, and proceeded back to the group that held all my doubts, so I can face all my fears.

    Susan asked me if I was okay and I replied with a short and somewhat rude reply that I was fine. I then promptly asked Joanna if I could speak to her in private. She agreed to do so to the surprise of both Rob and Susan. It surprised even Joanna, it surprised even me, I could not believe I was actually going to do this. I took her outside to the front of the bar and like someone destroying a dam, all the water that was my feelings broke through and almost certainly soaked any response she had prepared for me.

    “Joanna, I know I have never really spoke to you in private, even rarely in public, but I have to tell you something.” I could not believe I was not even hesitating. “I fell in love with you the moment you walked through my door 6 years ago, I never had the courage to do anything about it and that could end up being the biggest regret I ever have in my life, and I am not sure if I ever will love someone as much as I love you.” Here comes the alterations, “but I want you and Rob to get married and live a happy life, I want you to be happy, I want you live happy I want you to just love and be loved and if you believe Rob will do that for you then marry and him and be loved.” I was done the cliché mountain off my back was gone, for better or for worse I was free.

    She stood there for what seemed to be days but only for a moment, and then she merely with her voice for the muses quietly, almost whispering said “thank you”, kissed me on the cheek and made her way back to the party and Rob. Surprisingly I did not feel sad, or defeated, I felt relieved, satisfied, victorious. While Joanna made her way back to Rob, I made my way back to Susan with a smile and told her I loved her(the first time I ever told Susan this) Any fear Susan had of Joanna left and was replaced with a smile in return to mine and nearly overwhelming joy save the bit of skepticism she still had when she asked what went on outside. I told her that we talked about what love can do to you, and that is what made me think of her, of Susan. As the party was wrapping up I saw Joanna one last time as she was heading towards the exit, she looked at me and blew me a kiss, a goodbye kiss. I waved and smiled in return, I then found Susan told her I loved her again, and for the first time in my life I believed I knew what that meant and what I would have to do to show her that everyday.