Decisions

Some decisions always have the potential to be of great consequence.

Like where to go to school.

Whether to take that job.

Whether to kiss him.

Whether to wear a condom.

Whether to tell the truth.

Whether to break up with her.

The funny thing about these decisions, is as much as we may dwell over the countless future possibilities implied in each choice, the one we make almost always transition into fact so easily. It becomes hard to even imagine having stayed in that city or having said no.

Then there's those other decisions.

The ones you don't even know are decisions until after the consequences become apparent.

The ones you don't even consider unless something out of the ordinary results from them.

The ones that never seemed worth contemplating until regret came into play.

A month before my high school graduation, my friend Mal died in a car accident.

I remember feeling guilt over a decision I'd only even hypothetically made-- the morning I found out, her and I were set to meet during our spare period to discuss a project. I had considered asking her to reschedule so I could go tend to my boyfriend, who was sick at home. Of course, I never got to ask, yet I felt remorse deep in my guts about my secret thought of asking.

My misplaced guilt had nothing on that of her best friend, though. Before the accident, the two of them had been hanging out, perhaps out for coffee-- the details are long lost. Mal dropped off her friend at her house, before continuing on less than ten minutes down the road, where she collided with another car. And her best friend suddenly felt as though she'd made the most horrible mistake by not inviting Mal in for tea, to use the washroom, anything to just postpone her leaving for a single minute, that minute that could have changed everything. The funny thing is that if the accident had never happened, she would have never again considered why she didn't invite Mal in.

It seems that whenever there is something with unintended repercussions, one can't help but put all the decisions leading up to it, the ones you didn't even know you were making, under a microscope. I've wondered at times what if I hadn't picked up the phone, had another drink, walked in another direction, said something a little differently. I don't just do this with regrets. Today, as we lay on the couch, I surmised about all the haphazard choices that led up to that moment-- my last minute decision to go to a casually mentioned concert to get some space from obnoxious house guests, my choice to stand where I did in a sea of hundreds, to turn around at that exact moment.

It is mind-boggling that so much significance could come from a split-second choice.

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning

You ever get the feeling that some people just want to know they still have an effect on you?

So. The Ex.

The long and short of it- we dated for 6+ years. He was a bit of an alcoholic, and I was a bit of a pushover. We pretended that we were going to stay friends after we split up, but it mostly ended up in his new girlfriend stalking me, apologies (with seemingly ulterior motives), and awkward silences. I last saw him around a year and a half ago, and apparently we both, without saying anything, knew that despite there never being a big angry blowout, it was time for us to both stop pretending. And thus, outside of the occasional text message from him every few months, we stopped talking.

It was actually pretty comfortable to stop pretending we had very much to say.

In February, the first call in months. He asks me to be an apartment reference, for he is moving in with his new girlfriend, the one he met a month and a half earlier, who thankfully is his age and doesn't make a hobby out of sending me passive-aggressive emails. I agree out of some sort of obligation I don't even understand, given the fact that he needs me to serve as a reference because his rent cheques always bounced, leaving me to patch things up with our landlord. I never get a call.

After that, a few weird comments on Facebook, that I can only assume occurred when he was drunk, as they are nonsensical and disappear by the next morning. One is about our dead cat.

And then nothing for close to a year. Last month, I noticed that Facebook suggests that he and I should be friends, revealing that he has deleted me. Sure, I had a little righteous indignation swelling up at first, pretending as though I should have been the one with the right to delete him-- after all, he added me!-- but then, relief. For now I don't need to know anything about him, and he doesn't need to know anything about me. I can be finally be really angry, indifferent, whatever, without him popping up randomly every once in a while-- online or in real life, now that we live in different cities.

I realized several days later that for the first time in nearly 10 years, I didn't wish him happy birthday. I didn't even remember it was his birthday.

And, a week after his birthday, a mysterious text message on my phone from a number I don't know. "Hi Princess, just wanted to say a quick hello, hope you are well."

(yes, foreshadowing sucks on this one, but at the time, I was genuinely clueless)

I rack my brain for the origins of this number, and then, feeling somewhat guilty about not recognizing it, text back: "Hi! I feel like a jerk, but I lost a bunch of my numbers, so I have no clue who you are."

I text the Duke about this mystery message, and how awkward it is to have to figure out someone's identity. Without skipping a beat, he writes back: "I bet it's TheEx."

Two seconds later: "Haha, I'm hurt! It's your favourite ex."

Who, now, apparently wants to catch up.

And has tricked me into responding with his new cell phone number that of course I would have no way of knowing.

And knows that, while I may not had responded to his initial message, had I know, I'm pathologically incapable of being even a justifiable asshole, and have to respond once a conversation has been "officially started".

And, the whole time, I'm thinking that to delete me on Facebook and then to want to catch up weeks later is just the kind of hypocrite he is.

And I just play it cool, because I don't want him to know that I noticed in the first place.

Fuck.

Does anyone want to give me some lessons in justifiable assholishness?

Things I do that may or may not be really odd

Yelling at my boyfriend while I'm sleeping.

So a few nights ago, I got home rather late from a concert, and the Duke was hard at work studying for the GREs. He wanted a little tutoring on some of the math concepts, so we chatted for about an hour. When I crawled into bed, I cursed in my head a little, because I realized I was going to less sleep than I had planned before my early morning and long workday. Not too big of a deal, though, as I have functioned on far less sleep.

... or maybe it was a bigger deal than I realized, as about an hour later, I started sleep-chastising my boyfriend. I apparently sternly told him that he should not keep me up when he knows I have an early morning, because now I was only going to get five hours of sleep. One especially weird things about it-- I was seriously dead asleep, yet when he looked at the clock, at that point, there was exactly five hours until I had to get up.

Being overly concerned about my massage therapist.

Recently, I decided that all the blood, sweat, tears and muscle knots created to submit my internship applications early warranted a little spoiling- a full-body massage, to be exact. As I was booked fairly early in the day, I briefly considered not having a shower, as the copious amounts of aromatherapy oils used tend to leave my hair in need of a second washing when I return home. But then I felt like I would be an asshole if I left my legs unshaven, for my massage therapist would be forced to rub my oiled-up stubble. So I had a shower anyways. It was only later that I realized that two day leg stubble was probably far less offensive than many of the bodies she rubs on a regular basis.

Making up characters when I'm playing computer solitaire.

I make the red Queens and the black Queens yell at each other in my head in different voices. They are actually quite catty. The Kings are generally pretty calm and focused throughout the game, while the Jacks act like frat boys, eager to get up on the Queens.

Talking to inanimate objects as though that is somehow more sane than talking to myself.

"Oh, no, I was just talking to the ketchup!"

Using up valuable brain power contemplating various ridiculous scenarios.

For instance, what would happen if I somehow acquired another person's sense of smell, so I was smelling what they were despite being miles away? Or if a stranger from across the world somehow hacked into my sense of vision, how long would it take them viewing the world through my eyes to figure out what city I lived in?

Cleaning while in the shower.

I keep a Magic Eraser behind my body wash, just in case the urge to clean strikes me whilst nude. I like to pretend it is because I am trying to conserve water by doing multiple tasks at once. Really, it is just because I'm neurotic, and some days I just want the soap scum to be gone.

So, what's the verdict? And what do you do that is equally odd?

The psychology of leaving

I have a friend who has always dreamed of going to work in Australia. It was, of course, after she'd fallen in love that all the sudden the pieces, seemingly out of nowhere, fell together. She is leaving in a matter of months. I saw them on Friday, and although they are trying to just be together until she goes, there is this wall that has grown out of nowhere. It is like neither of them want to risk falling any harder, with the end so in sight.

I think she would stay if he asked her to. But he will never ask.

***

I sent off my first application on Wednesday. I thought it would feel cathartic, but it didn't. It felt like I had swallowed a ball of static electricity.

***

I put on a sweater this morning. The sleeves felt taut. It appeared to have shrunk in the wash.

I usually would find an excuse to keep it, telling myself I could wear it over a thin tank top, that the colour goes well with my eyes. Now I just want to get rid of it, telling myself that it is a waste of a hanger, that it would take up the space of something more useful in a moving box.

***

Things always acquire a different flavour when you know that there is a definitive conclusion coming, even if it is months away. I knew I wanted to leave my job, but it didn't seem particularly imperative. But now that I have officially given notice, everything about it seems grating. All the minute flaws are suddenly as subtle as sirens.

I'm trying my damnedest to go on living as normal as possible. After all, I always knew life here was never supposed to be permanent. But, still, with application deadlines looming, it has become a lot more difficult to not focus on the countdown. My friend starts talking about going to a haunted house next Halloween, when suddenly I realize I will not be here then.

I don't think it is just the fact that I will be somewhere else. I have always had a sense of my location as being temporary ever since what seemed like a traumatic move across the province when I was 10. I grew up knowing that ambition necessitated leaving my small home town. I knew grad school necessitated leaving the city where I did my undergrad. And I know internship requires leaving here, and that his PhD requires leaving my internship city, and then jobs will necessitate us leaving that city. As the cliche goes, the only real certainty right now is him and I and change.

But that not knowing is what tarnishes everything. It's not that I won't be here next Halloween, but that I don't know where I'll be. And as much as my mind tries to simultaneously make a plan for each of the ten places I could be, it's not the same.

It's not that I'm scared- I'm not. If I've learned anything over the past decade, it's that I am more adaptable and independent that most. I can't help but laugh at how stifling life would be if I had it planned out to the same degree as some of my friends, with their how many months they should date before marriage and then how many more months more until children. I like having faith that I can be happy without such a concrete plan.

I'm just having a hard time staying in the present these days.