I went to Eugene for the first time in about 6 weeks this past weekend. It was great to see the Arthur-baby-muffin and the rest of my family despite a head cold and the exhaustion of driving up there. Arthur smiles a lot now and it is bizarre and magical to look into a tiny face that stares into your eyes, coos adorable sounds to you and produces smiles that you recognize as looking somewhat like your own. All of those smiles and baby coos make 16 plus hours in the car well worthwhile. It also goes without saying, but I will say it here lest anyone become tooo jealous of Arthur, that I adore my siblings, my mama and all of their partners to pieces.
The confusing and frustrating part of all of this is that were there not a nephew to visit, I would althogether cease my Eugene visits for awhile. I would arrange for my family to come see me periodically and I would stay far away from Eugene, the place where I feel my heart being chiseled out with a dull spoon. Let me explain. A few days before I went home, I found myself weeping on the Bay Bridge while driving because after feeling the familiar wave of excitement in my stomach at going to see my most treasured friend, I realized that I only felt that out of habit and in reality, that wave of emotion will probably never again exist for a real reason. I started crying because I had gotten outside of my anger towards the ex-best friend for long enough to just purely miss him, and miss him like crazy. Luckily I had only two hours of work and an hour before work so I got to take myself out for coffee then throw myslef onto the bed and cry my eyes out until work.

Being in the same town as someone who you desperately miss, feel drastically misunderstood by and deeply disrespected by is not fun. I feel my spirit dull when I take exit 189 to go into Eugene. And all weekend I am not myself and feel less humorous and well-adjusted than normal. All of this was augumented by the fact that I ran into Mr. DCBS at LCC…acronyms abound!!! (DCBS are actually his initials, not the initials for some mean nickname that I came up with)
There is a cool reason for my appearence at LCC though which makes all of it slightly better. I am goiing to create a dance show to be performed at LCC this spring. I am going to import myself along with my dance company, group A, and some of my favorite dancers from here and there. So I was there starting on the logistical planning of that whole event.
When I saw him I became mostly frozen while my endocrine system went ape-shit and my heart tried to pound its way out of my chest. It also felt very warm in building 16 of Lane Community College, but I think in reality it was pretty toasty in there. He looked a little startled, and I felt like I probably looked like I was trying to kill him with a glare. He started walking by me like he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to talk to me and then he said hello. I responded shortly and he asked how I was to which I replied something massively articulate like “good.” I wish I had said something like: “Well at the moment I am massivly freaked out by the fact that you are standing in front of me but things in my life have been great. I played harp at a wedding job last month, I got a promotion and now am managing two pilates studios, had a weekend of sold-out shows for my dance company, am working on writing a computer program involving somatics and diagnoses, am learning french and german so that I can live in france and germany in the future and am still working on the novel that will probably complely subversively slander you. And how are you??” But that would have been far too interactive for how I felt at seeing him and I’m not sure what good it would have done anyway.
He stood there looking unsure and trying to make small talk and I stuck with the shortest answers I could manage. It was torture. I wanted to recieve one of the hugs I have so missed, I wanted to tell him of all the wonderful things that have been going on in my life, I wanted to find out about his life. But I couldn’t. I simply couldn’t indulge in that interaction since I knew it would be so brief. It would have broken my heart more to have had some kind of real interaction approximating what we used to share on a daily basis. So instead I stood glaring, making sharp, one or two word answers and feeling miserable. I also felt like shaking him and yelling at him, asking him to wake up…maybe attempting to find out what the fuck happened and why he had to act so carelessly. I think I know why, but it’s not easy to never have had any sort of confirmation or resolution from someone who was once so dear to my heart.