Ringed

Oh, the difference years make…

20 May 2017

He took me to the beach and he brought me back again, and on each trip I was, wholeheartedly, his woman. But between the two trips, there and back, my whole life changed. Suddenly, our future, and the plural pronoun it requested, went from “possibly” to “probably” with but a single question and a single answer. “Elle, will you be mine?”

My stammering “Yes” was not graceful, it was not sensual—I was standing in flip-flops for gods’ sake. It did not have the deep base passions of other Yeses he’s pulled from my lips. But it was enough. My body shuddered with relief as the sun slipped its smile beneath the surface of the horizon, and I thanked my lucky stars for the hasty nail job I’d slipped on before we left, even if it made us late. T-minus two weeks till Houston fades into our rearview mirror.

 

26 November 2013

On Sunday Mary asked me if Jonathan and I were a thing, and in telling her I told myself as well: I’m over that. Done with him. Tired of the back and forth. This diary/journal (what is it?) has not seen the complicated history we’ve dragged each other through this semester, but, with little to nothing to show for it, my own self-respect silences my neediness—I must be done. I am. I’m going to London, he’s going to Sinapore… Mary chuckled, said it sounded like a romance novel. #mylife. Now I am working on prying my feelings from his fuzzy, helmeted head. I took him to Esperanza because I needed a date, but that’s done with. Moving forward.

Except that I’ll end the semester the same way I started it: with no guy friends with any potential. And what kind of progress is that?

…

I joke that I’m going to the UK to find a husband. But really, am I joking? It’s what I’ve wanted all along: a good European man. Tyring (in vain) not to get my hopes up.

/Sigh/ – Apparently I live for complications…