Jagged Little Pill

"I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles"
--Alanis Morrissette "You Learn" Jagged Little Pill

"I miss her," he says as the two of you are talking on the phone at 1:00am. It is the usual hour that you are on the phone. He called you at the usual time of between 11:30pm and midnight. Always before Midnight though. Even if it is three minutes before, it is always before midnight. You often wondered if this was just a coincidence.

"Miss who?" you ask. Of course you ask. He has been saying he misses you for the past two days, but being tired from work, and just not in the mood to hear the chorus of objections that come when you are going to hang out with him, you have declined.

"Sammy" he says. You hear the longing in his voice. From what you remember, he hasn't spoken to her for awhile. They had a falling out over the summer during a trip gone awry to Disneyland in California. He repeats the words again, "I miss her."

"Okay," you say hesitantly,"So why don't you give her a call?"

"Well, the last time I tried was Christmas Day," he says,"I was trying to see if we could maybe work things out."
"You mean like be friends again?" you ask, walking blindly into the conversation that you knew was eventually coming, just didn't know about who, or when.

"Friends, a relationship, everything," he says.

He then procedes to tell you the story about how he--this man who always says that he isn't ready for a relationship, the man who told you before that he hasn't met anyone who he wants to be in a relationship with--wanted to be in a relationship with her. How he told her that he would give up all of his other women for her. How his home was open to her 24/7. How he wanted to be in a serious, committed relationship with her. No more Babs events. No more swing parties. Committed. WHen he speaks the word committment, your stomach does this weird flip flop because you have never heard him talk about how he wanted to be committed to ANYONE. Ever. You swallow hard, trying to make the ball of nerves that is in your stomach quiet down. You know there is more.

"Wow," is all you can muster at first. Part of you--the part that is platonic friend--is proud of him for even thinking that he would want to be committed."So what happened?"

He then tells you about the arguments. How there was a problem with everything. She complained about not seeing him enough, when she was putting in 14-16 hour days and he was working and going to school fulltime. She complained about them not fucking enough, but when they went on vacation together and he wanted to, she didn't. She complained about him not complimenting her enough, but when he did, she didn't believe his sincereity. That platonic part of you realizes that this is all his side of the story. It is the side that loves him for all of his flaws that knows that when he says something flattering that it is true because he doesn't cut corners. He tells the truth to a fault.

He tells you about the fact that he met her in what you call the Babs swing circuit. That group of BBWs and Admirers that gets down like that after Babs parties in hotels. He actually met her while he was hanging out with you in Philly at a BBW getaway weekend, and had wanted to kick it to her then. But she had a man. It is at that point, the side that loves him whispers in your mind "Damn...for as long as he wanted her, you have wanted him."
And as he talks about how it hurt him that she wouldn't give up swinging to be with him, the side of you that loves him and the platonic side begin to fight a fierce battle. Because as your platonic side offers him the comfort that a friend would, the side that loves him wants to scream. You know that he probably sees it as karma.The dirt he has put out into the world, he probably feels has come back to him in the form of this unrequited deep like.
The side that loves him cries because you finally get it. You realize that it doesn't matter to him that you are not a ho. It does not matter that you don't go to swing parties and never would. It does not matter that you are actually making progress in your life, while others are stuck. Even at your most indecisive, you are still TRYING to make something of yourself.You are a good woman. He knows that. His friends know that. it wouldn't matter if you had the world on a damn string. Because you just are NOT that woman for him. You could do everything "right" in his eyes until the cows come home,pigs fly, and every other cliched phrase that represents the "never" that is the state of the relationship that is you and him.

You hold most of your tears for when you are in the comfort of one of your female friends the next morning. And the beauty of a good friend is that they will never say "I told you so" even though you know that they have been saying that for a long time now. It hurts like hell that with all that you have tried to be, it is with someone else that he wanted to be with. Show the real man side of himself to. But you brush your tears away, wash your face, and move on with your day. Sometimes God whispers the truth to you. Sometimes He has to hit you in the head with a brick for you to get it.

You get it now. Now, the healing must begin. You aren't sure how that is going to happen. You aren't sure whether you should just steer clear of him or act like this news hasn't had the effect on you that it did. You don't know anything except that what you want, you won't have. And that you must learn from this. And move on. And heal yourself. Once you figure out how to get there.

"You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose
you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn"