WHISPER WORDS OF WISDOM TO YOURSELF, SHE SAID

by Helene (Like A Rolling Stone) Gresser

Okay, so I’ve officially moved from the Isle of Manhatta to the boroughs of Brooklyn/Queens (I am apparently on the border.) I have given up the life of a single lady in a studio apartment to be a single-ish lady living in a three-bedroom apartment with two roommates, and I am paying to store my mountain of crap until I have the energy to sort through it all and decide what needs selling/donating/throwing away, since I cannot fit much more than a bed, a desk, some shelves, a cat box, and a small sampling of my shoe fetish collection. I am now required to do things that I have been putting off for years: my taxes, my filing, clarifying my life choices, simplifying, organizing, prioritizing.  And I now live ten blocks from my guy. This is going to be interesting.  It is either a great move on my part, or a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad mistake.

Since I am in a dating situation that has no clear boundaries or exclusivity contract, just a promise to be honest and straightforward and respectful and all that adulty stuff that comes from years of experience and failed relationships and tears and fights and pain, I am in a near-constant state of anxiety that I will cross some sort of DMZ and venture too far into Togetherland. Mind you, I want to visit Togetherland, it seems like a lovely and loving place, full of sexual exclusivity and holidays with family and vacations in sunny climes. But when one has been through the wringer, Togetherland is littered with promises unfulfilled and freedoms bridled and potential agony lurking in the shadows.

I’ve been seeing this dude for a few months now – we started very sporadically and worked our way slowly to weekly dates, usually made at the last minute, and it has been terrifically without drama or disagreement or despair. I ventured into the DMZ late one night, in bed, tentatively asking about “seeing other people.” I was not requesting it for myself. I was asking if this was part of the deal. One must always be prepared for this moment when one is the inquirer. I was prepared. My guy and I talked as adults will, calmly, lovingly, respectfully. He has always been loving and respectful. And, yes, honest.

I hope we can always talk this way. My fears of moving so close to him are based on the what-ifs: what if he is on a date with someone else one night, and we run into each other? What if he does not want me to pop by his shop so often on my way into town? What if I have stronger feelings for him than he for me, and I ruin our quiet ease with heaping hopes of trips to Jamaica and Christmas presents that come from the heart?

Let me sort out my boxes and deal with my messes, I say to myself. Let me take care of my future and the future will just unfold as it will, willy-nilly. I have made a big move, and must take care of myself without piling my romantic dreams onto another equally complex and burdened human. Happiness and clarity are fleeting moments, and my flailing arms can drown a man if I am not careful to see things as they are now, and be satisfied with being in deep like.

I am so very frightened and excited and vulnerable, here, now.  Let it be. Let it be.

-hmg