Single People Alone Together

I read this really interesting blog post* by this group of 20 somethings at work on their definition of marriage and what it means to be married. And, while I am nowhere near being a “20 something” I could seriously relate to all of the stories at one point or another in my life.

And it got me thinking to my own relationship, and what it means to be married. I mean, most of my friends are all single and damn proud of it as they should be, and even those of my friends who are married (which are like 3 of them) most act like single people anyway. So why did I go over to the “dark side” and choose wife instead of life?

I never wanted to get married, I will admit that. And even though Vicky and Pistol took bets that I would eventually change my mind, I was adamant in my decision that I wanted no part of that. So I sit here, in a pool of my own hypocrisy, happily married to a wonderful man and I can’t imagine my current life any different.

To me marriage meant children, it meant the second shift after work of cooking and cleaning and laundry (minus the gym and the tanning), it meant having to sacrifice who I am and the relationships I have built in order to become a perfect “we” to a man I have only known for a short period of time…I mean who the hell wants that?!?!

So what changed? What made me want to take that leap of fate that I wouldn’t be walking down the path of indentured servitude all in exchange for a shiny ring and a big party?

Honestly? It was rethinking the whole concept of marriage and creating my own dysfunctional version of it with a boy who seemed to be on board with my crazy antics. It was the understanding that I would be still be allowed to be myself – with my one sock wearing*, Britney obsessing, over working antics – without being judged and without being weighed down by this extra person who I am now legally tied to through various state documents.

I mean yes, there is still the cooking and cleaning part that I do (and he takes no part of) but really I can’t even blame him for that. It is my Latin Catholic upbringing, and the constant reminder from my parents that I need to be a better wife, that forces me to come home and make these elaborate meals while loading the washer, and feeding the dog, and a million other things, all the while checking my work email and responding to crisis. And when I complain, I get the “we should just hire someone to do that stuff” so I guess it’s all self induced from an internal cultural instinct like birds migrating south** for the winter.

But at the end of the day, Xtian and I are very much our own independent selves. I mean honestly, we both work and travel so much and even when we are home we are at our own respective workstations that it seems more like a roommate, with occasional benefits, situation than anything else. I trust and respect him, innately, and seek his advice as a teammate in my so called life but honestly how is that any different than my BFFs and if I lived with them(aside from the benefits situation, although they are all pretty hot so you never know)? And it works…for me. And isn’t that all that should really matter?

Now, I am in no means advocating that everyone get married or that everyone needs to be coupled up at all. What I am saying is that you don't let others define what your happiness is. Don't let people bully you into thinking that you need to be single or be married for that matter (lord knows I get pleanty of eye rolls and snarky remarks for being married). Define your own happiness and to hell with the rest.

::steps off soapbox::

This post is dedicated to Booger, Vicky B and Pistol…my forever soul mates

*If you are interested in the blog shoot me a note and I will email it to you
**If you got this, thank you for being my BFF.
***I am going with south here because it is closer to the equator and that is warmer…brownie points to those who get the reference

Hello, Is It Me Your Looking For?

Yes kiddies, it is your old Auntie Gravy Train here and I think I am ready to bust a Jay-Z and come out of retirement for the umpteenth time.

I know it has been way to long and I am not sure how long I can keep this up, but I think it is time I return center stage for a final curtain call until my next curtain call on this thing we call life, love, happiness and to much booze.

Onward through the haze my friends: whose coming with me?

XOXO,
Gravy Train

This post is dedicated to Posh, Pistol and D...whoes daily blogging musings have kept me entertained enough to be jelly.

Moving On

John: Hey
Gravy: Hey is for horses…HA HA
John: How have you been? It has been awhile
Gravy: I have been good; I have something to tell you though
John: Me too, you first
Gravy: Xtian and I got engaged on Friday
Gravy: Isn’t that crazy?
John: You can’t be serious?
Gravy: Yes and why would you say that?
John: Gravy the 2nd and I got engaged
John: On Friday night
Gravy: You are effin kidding me!?!?!
John: No
Gravy: Call me

---

Although John and I tried to maintain our friendship over the last few years it is difficult being friends with someone whom you were never really friends to begin with. I think this is what happened to both John and I…John and Me…John and I (I never really get that right): we were never really friends so trying to maintain something nonexistent was hard.

There was the inevitable tension with our respective partners for one thing. As far as I understood it Gravy the 2nd never really took a liking to me (why would she?) and Xtian, though cordial, never really took a liking to him (why would he?).

Then there was the distance. I barely see/talk to my friends who live a mile away so why would I make new kinds of effort to keep in touch with someone I now had very little in common with? I had changed, he had changed, we had changed, what’s the point? I meant to keep in touch, I really did, but I mean to do lots of things that in reality I never really actually mean so meaning to stay in touch was low priority for me…and him.

In the end, aside from the obligatory “happy birthday” emails (we are three days apart thus rarely forget each other’s bdays) and random Facebook updates we have lost touch. He did indeed marry Gravy the 2nd and I did indeed marry Xtian (not on the same day thank God) and we both have moved on and I have rarely thought about that part of my life since then.

It was not until visiting my parents’ home last weekend and going through my journals and photo albums that brought all the memories flooding back.

This post is dedicated to Bridget Jones and her Diary

Climbing Out

From: John (john) [mailto:john@oldschool.com]
Sent: Wed 2/1/2006 3:35 PM
To: Train, Gravy
Subject: RE: Drinks?

Hi Gravy,

OMG yes I will be free. How long are you in town for? Where will you be staying? Do you want to stay with me? we must meet up. Bellow is my cell number though you should know it by heart.

From: Train, Gravy [mailto:gravy.train@supercoolplace.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 3:20 PM
To: John
Subject: Drinks?

Hey John,

I will be in Toronto next week for a new business preso, would you be free for a drink on the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 8? It would be good to see you again, since it has been forever.

xoxo,
Gravy

---

The weekend prior, I had aided Xtian in packing up his fabulous apartment in San Jose so that he could unpack it in his fabulous flat in London. He left me the keys to his apartment and his car in the hopes that when he returned in a year or so I would be fully moved in. I laughed at the ridiculousness of his request but took them anyway for peace of mind. If he still had his things here then that meant that he would come back right? He had to. I was still here and I was perfect for him…at least I tried to be when I wasn’t second guessing everything he said and did and everything I said and did.

A week had passed that I had been without Xtian. We had fallen into a schedule, he would call me when he went to bed (my afternoon) and I would call him when I went to bed (his morning) and things seemed to be chugging along quite nicely, then again it was only a week. He was excited about my upcoming trip, not only would this be a good testing ground for me at work to see how good I would be at new business (if I only knew then that this would be what I would be known for at work) but also because he loved Toronto. He had gone to school near there and had all these great places he wanted me to check out.

Wed. 8th started off like no other except for the fact that I was starting out my day in Toronto. My mobile rings.

Xtian: “Hey baby wanted to wish you luck this week”
Gravy: “Thanks baby”
Xtian: “So what are you doing today?”
Gravy: “Breakfast meeting, then in the Toronto office for the day, then John in picking me up and we are going for dinner.”
Xtian: …
Gravy: “Well I hope you have a great day love, talk to you later”
Xtian: “Call me when you get home please no matter the time”
Gravy: “It will be really early for you in the morning, I will talk to you tomorrow”
Xtian: “Please just call me”
Gravy: “Okay, I love you”
Xtian: “I love you, please don’t forget that”
Gravy: “I love you too, with all my heart”

Later that night I met up with John at his house in little Italy. When I walked in he had a glass of Barolo waiting and started to give me a tour of his house. It was warm yet chic, very him. He looked the same yet so different…something had changed. The mystery that he always held was gone: he looked tired, unhappy; the spirit that I always admired from him seemed broken.

I opted out of the upstairs tour and told him I was starving and we should head to dinner soon. Truth be told, I was oddly nervous and my appetite was shot but I had no desire for the whole “this is my room” tour, for what? There was no point.

We get to the restaurant and it was incredible: the food, the people, the atmosphere. I was relaxed in no time. He told me about his girlfriend, I told him about my boyfriend. He asked me how I felt now that Xtian was gone, I told him I was fine, he laughed - in his mind there went the non-committal Gravy again (if only he knew).

We talked about our families, our mutual friends, the potential for marriage and 2.5 kids with our current mates vs. us together. And as nights like ours usually go, we reminisced about what could have been and what never will be. After dinner, we headed to a hipster bar where we had some more wine and shared a few cigarettes. Always shared, always Italian, and he would always light them for me so that I could take the first drag. He knew me so well.

The night drew to a close and he grabbed a cab for us so that he could take me back to my hotel. We sat in the warm car, he wrapped his arm around me – a force of habit that no matter how many years we have been apart neither of us ever seem to have broken no matter how inappropriate – and we sat in a comfortable silence making our way out of little Italy into the financial district. The cabbie pulls up to my hotel and as he gets out to walk me to my room, I tell him that he needn’t bother since it is late and we both have early starts in the morning.

He kissed me good-bye and for the first time in my life I remember not feeling powerless, not feeling lost at his touch. Maybe it was the snowflakes piercing reality on my face, maybe it was his hand that now felt so foreign as it held mine, maybe it was the fact that the “we” that I had held on to for so many years was beyond repair. At that moment, that exact moment, I knew it was over and that I could walk away…I pulled away from his embrace and that is exactly what I did.

I went upstairs, sat on my hotel bed, and called Xtian…whatever past that had haunted me and thus consequently haunted our relationship was over…and I could be his forever.

This post is dedicated to Dr. Phil

Falling Down

“Just know it was you all along that had a hold of my heart,

But the demon and me were the best of friends from the start”

- Kings of Leon

He was Italian-Canadian, Catholic, good family, spoke 3 languages, well dressed, well traveled and well mannered. John was my first love.

While we shared many of the same qualities, I was 19 (he was younger), self-absorbed, fun loving, hard partying and non-committal. I was his first love.

We openly dated for 6 months (my choice not his) and after the last of my shenanigans in that fatefull sixth month he decided that he needed someone who could provide a more stable and committed kind of love. I refused. He left and broke my heart.

For the next 5 years of our young lives we talked, we friended, we made-out, we argued, we stopped talking, we started again, we visited, we made-out, I was confused, he was confused, we were confused. He broke my heart again and again all the while the deeper I fell down the rabbit hole until the point I was an unrecognizable weaker version of myself whenever he was around. Yet he had known me for so long and knew everything about me that with one glance it was as if he could read my soul and thus held it captive for many years to come.

Enter 24. After a long hiatus of traveling post college for both of us, he ended up coming back to live in my hometown. He called me the night he came in and Vicky and Pistol (tired of the drama) insisted that I not run out and meet him. I didn’t. In fact, I spent the next 7 months avoiding him at all costs. The deeper I fell.

We met one night for drinks: his friends, my friends, our friends. We both fell back into our same old habits. It was nice. He asked me for dinner, he would make me my favorite dish and desert at his new place, and I readily agreed.

In-between the antipasti and the vodka penne he let me know that he was leaving to move back to Toronto to be with his family. That he had given the Bay Area a try to see if perhaps we could make things work and live happily ever after (as so many of our friends had repeatedly predicted) but that, as always, I had shown a disinterest in him and in being part of a committed relationship in general. I smiled, drank my Barolo, went upstairs to his bedroom where I curled into his chest and told him to make sure to stay in touch. It was July.

He left and I decided that it was time to grow-up. I gathered my resume together, called my temp agent to let her know I was planning to get a real job and I started to apply to a variety of jobs that had carrer potential given my random skill set. A friend of mine recommended me to my current employer (where I would later come to meet one of my dearest friends on the planet, D, and her subsequent fabulous friends G, Posh and A). I applied, got the job, and had my last temp job at a very (then) prestigious investment bank.

Xtian walked in. Xtain was Finnish-Canadian, beyond liberal, confident, aggressive, insanely smart and well dressed in a different kind of way. We talked, we laughed, he asked me for my number and I obliged. It was November.

By January we were in a committed exclusive relationship and the very next January he broke my heart. We were back together by April of that year but John was also back. A job title changed meant he would be coming back to the bay area more often. We would meet every chance we had – sometimes with friends, sometimes without – he had a girlfriend (also aptly named Gravy) and I had a boyfriend (also aptly a hockey playing Canadian).

We talked and talked and talked…about them, about us, about how we had grown-up, how we had grown apart. Yet despite both of us being in happy in our respective relationships something between us lingered. Dragged down by the weight our baggage we sank into the safety of our self-destructive routines. We both knew it was wrong, yet we both didn’t know how to not be physically or emotionally “us.” My friends nodded their heads in disapproval, my parents shrugged in confusion, and Xtian was Xtian…highly suspicious and competitive.

Late that winter, Xtian told me he would be moving to London for work. Later that winter, my boss told me she needed me to be in Toronto for a week for work. It was February.

The post is dedicated to the infamous cliffhanger, perfected by SO, since this post is long enough as it is.