Many Million Dreams Ago • Ch. 6 of 10
The Chapter’s Song:
“Your girlfriend doesn’t look too happy today,” other employees would sometimes say to me.
“Oh, that’s just how it is if she isn’t smiling,” I explained. It was true. If she wasn’t beaming with joy from ear to ear, she had a sense of annoyed anger. The smile she wore though—, it made all of that wash away and even sparked something angelic in her.
We’d plan on going out to romantic dinners every once in a while. We’d get to the place, take our seats, and immediately feel like we were more grown-up than ever before in our lives. We spoke at length about this and that while going over the menu and deciding which meal best suited our given mood for the night. Inevitably, the waiter would ask for our drink orders as well and with that—, we’d decide on two very mature choices. Wine or fancy margaritas or something else that seemed to fit with our vibe. I had reached the point in my journey where whoever I was dating and I could enjoy a glass of Chardonnay and not use it as an excuse to completely forget about tomorrow. It was a nice reminder that I too, was finally growing up.
When we weren’t out trying new restaurants or circulating through our favorite ones, we’d make a stop at the local church on Sunday mornings. It was surreal—, being in such an important place with such an important person by my side and all the while, knowing that there was no chance of ruining our good energy as soon as we’d step back out into the shining sunlight. Memories would sometimes come flooding back in; an old flame, a prior church, so many broken pieces of our hearts left out in those empty parking lots. It was just another example of how far I’d truly gotten.
That Christmas felt especially special. We’d both packed as many gifts as possible underneath my white light-wrapped tree I’d kept in the corner of my living-room which gave the entire place a nice, warm glow. I got her a couple of new outfits that I knew matched her style; dark army-greens and Earthy-browns. She’d gift-wrapped a huge rectangular-shaped board and upon opening it I saw a beautiful black and white picture of us kissing blown up to poster-sized dimensions and neatly framed all around.
“This is amazing,” I said to her, surprised at how artful the photograph turned out. It was from the very beginning of our relationship. Now we’d have a keepsake from that time-period forever hanging on my bedroom wall opposite my bed so that it’d be the first thing we’d see when waking up in the morning.
Even though I was beginning to feel a certain sort of joy again, the days were starting to blend into each other—, restaurants, movies, even going to church began seeming mundane. Like we’d already done it a thousand times before. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy the outings and especially the company, but I was getting the faint feeling that we were becoming stuck. That this was it—, there was nowhere else to really go. No level to rise to, no separate stage to reach. We’d found out almost everything there was to find out about each other and now we just sat in silence, waiting for the night to roll around so we could head back off to sleep. Finally, she snapped me out of my constant daydreaming by asking a very grown-up, very mature question—, something I was far from having the answer to.
“So what’s your five-year goal look like?,” she seriously said. I had no clue as to what that even entailed. I understood the point of having such a plan, but I was the last person who’d ever truly considered it before.
“I’m..., not sure,” I admitted. I knew I’d at least want to move somewhere different again. That I’d need a change of scenery sooner or later—, and that I even wanted her to be there for it, but other than that, I was just a shadow sifting itself from former faults. I was still healing in a way, still dreaming that everything would somehow circle around and I’d be able to become all I’d fallen so short of long ago. It didn’t take much time for her to follow-up the question with something even deeper.
“We should look into getting homeowners’ insurance,” she suggested. I had no idea how little I actually knew about being a responsible adult. No wonder I’d been such an ineligible bachelor before. Still, she saw something special in me and that went a long way in my trying to appease her expectations for future plans.
“Yeah—, we should,” I finally said of the insurance. I just wanted to make her happy—, to make sure she didn’t regret the decision to open up her heart to me.
“My friend wants to have us over for dinner,” she unexpectedly said one day. “She’s getting married next September and wants me in the wedding, so we have to go.” She’d already been preparing her speech—, this was something very important to her and I needed to be on board one-hundred percent.
“Okay,” I reluctantly agreed, knowing I’d have to be on my best behavior around the prospective spouses. It’s not that I didn’t want to go, I liked being involved in her world, with her friends. They’d just lived a different type of life than I had. If they only knew, I’d think to myself, remembering all the wasted nights of being wasted and all the hazy days that’d follow. I was so much more acceptable now—, dressed better, spoke more sensibly, acted a touch above my previous years. Still—, the lit embers inside my soul burned onward, letting me know with each exhale of thick smoke that something still raged within. That young rebel never really did completely disappear—, he’d just fallen into a deep sleep that nobody else could wake him up from. How do I get back there? Do I even want to go back there at all? I didn’t know the answers to the many things which kept my mind racing in the middle of the night. All I knew was that once the sun went back down, I’d be laying next to her again—, and that she liked who I was.
The day arrived that we’d be heading to her friend’s new house. I maintained keeping my butterflies in check, knowing I was representing her and wanted to do as good of a job as possible in making her proud to show me off. We arrived and I readied myself to be the person I’d always known I could be—, sharp, stylish, and somewhat-cultured at the very least. The door opened and beyond it was a cozy atmosphere that just oozed nearly-newlywed love. Above the fireplace stood two wooden capital letters, one for each of their first names. The kitchen was neatly organized and the dinner table was beautifully set up for four people. It was all so—, grown-up. I needed to act mature and make sure that this was all very routine and customary for me—, to have such friends that bought nice homes in nice neighborhoods and lived nice, normal lives.
“Let’s eat,” said the fiancées. We took our seats and spoke at length about new movies, books we’d read, and slightly touched on when my girlfriend and I would tie the knot ourselves. My stomach slightly dropped at the question. Not because it was a completely foreign concept, but because I wasn’t anywhere near ready for that sort of thing at this stage in my life. I’d already looked down that path in the past and almost took the first few steps towards it, but now—, I was farther away from it than ever before.
We made our way back home and so, for the second time in my life, the arguments didn’t take long to follow. We’d been growing weary of one another’s mannerisms for a while and though I still found most of hers somewhat charming, she was probably getting fed up with mine. She could tell that I wasn’t as excited about things as I’d once been—, that the ditch of real life that I’d fallen into was keeping me stuck inside of it like quicksand. She needed to intercede with something—, anything. So she did.
“Just know—, if you’re not at that wedding, this relationship...” she trailed off. I knew what she’d meant. I’d felt it myself for a while. Still—, the thought of actually attending the event itself brought me down into a depression I couldn’t tell her about. Again—, I had nobody to confide in. I wouldn’t have been able to explain myself anyway—, that it was the atmosphere, the designer dresses, everything working together to remind one of what it truly meant to marry their soulmate, once and for all. I didn’t want to go to something like that. I’d been around weddings my entire life and always let myself daydream about my own someday. This was a new chapter of my life though—, and from here on out, I wasn’t allowing myself to lose anymore time doing something like that.
All of my negativities, pessimism, and destructive depression came back like a wrecking ball. She noticed all of it and didn’t know what advice to possibly give me that’d snap me out of my self-loathsome behavior and back into the real world she’d helped me face all this time. We’d begun arguing over the smallest and simplest things and always went on to regret it later.
On another random night, we’d been bickering for some time and had retreated to separate rooms of the apartment when the sound of her sobbing shook me back into the present moment. I walked into the bedroom and saw her curled up underneath the covers facing the wall.
“What’s wrong?,” I asked from the heart.
“I wish we could go back to when we first met—,” she said. “I wish things could start turning around for us.” I knew she’d been getting tired of the constant fighting, but this was a new side of her I hadn’t yet encountered. I felt a strong sense of empathy rush over me—, if only it would’ve lasted a while longer.
The arguments kept piling up—, one on top of another. It was a different type of personal disappointment though. One that seemed more advanced than the many nights I’d spent awake so many years prior. This time, it felt more consequential. Like I wasn’t just living for today or tonight but that my actions would have an affect on future emotions and moments altogether.
The perfect example of that came one morning when we’d both woken up with incredibly negative energies surrounding us. The way she rolled out of bed, got dressed, and was applying her make-up all felt so forced. Like she didn’t want to be there at all. Maybe it was just my imagination or maybe I’d been right all along about her fleeting feelings—, but either way, I couldn’t take much more of it.
“Problem?,” I asked her while she smoked before leaving to go to work.
“Not one—,” she coldly replied, smashing the rest of her lit cigarette into the black ash tray with all the hostility she’d been holding inside her and storming out of the bedroom. I just quietly stared up at the ceiling before noticing an empty cup on the nightstand. I reached for it, snatched it off the table, and hurled it as hard as I could at the hanging portrait of us kissing—, shattering the protective surface into pieces and leaving a giant mark on the photograph itself. Not two seconds went by before she came back into the bedroom, wanting to see what the loud sound was. She noticed the broken Christmas present she’d had specially made and just looked back at me with the most disappointed eyes I’d ever seen her make. Years later, she’d go on to tell me;
“That was the moment I started letting you go.”
Some time passed by but the wound never truly healed. Finally, on a day that seemed on its surface to resemble all the others before it, I was half-asleep on the living-room couch when I felt her presence walking right up to me. She bent down to kiss me on my forehead before standing back up. It’d be the last one we’d ever share together. She walked towards the front door to leave as I slowly began waking up. I could tell something was different about the way she’d let her lips touch my skin for so much longer than usual. There was an added sadness lingering in the air, probably from the night before or our last fight.
“So, tonight then?,” I asked of when we’d see each other again.
“Probably not,” she said with slight attitude.
“Why?” She just shrugged from the bottom of the stairs. That was enough to let me know something was wrong. Like we’d been heading down this road for a while but now we were finally at its end. I couldn’t make too much sense of it. I just knew I wanted to change direction. I wanted to change myself and my relationship and my life overall—, I just didn’t know where to begin. A thousand things were piling up inside my mind and I wanted to say all of them at once, but there was only one phrase that I could come up with. “Have fun at the wedding,” I said, slamming the door shut. I couldn’t see it, I couldn’t make out the tearing sound, but I knew—, on the other side in the stairwell was a heart breaking in two, just like mine had been for a while now. An already-broken bridge began crumbling apart, piece by piece—, falling into the nothingness underneath. There was no more structure linking our two worlds together. We were finally on our own—, again. A familiar feeling to say the least.
Things settled down after that. The apartment grew more silent by the day. The friends coming over got more impatient with my gloomy nature. Wine lost its taste but not its effect. The bed felt empty but not the sleep. Anything to pass another day. Anything to make it through another mundane week. I quickly realized that there was nothing else left for me in either the city or the state itself. The environments I’d made less-than-perfect memories in remembered my mistakes all too well. They’d remind me of them whenever I’d pass through. I needed a change of scenery, a change of lifestyle. It’d been time for me to move away for years, but only recently had I caught on to the notion for myself. There was only one place on the planet which could cure me of my despondency. I was finally headed towards my own personal heaven; L-trains, taxicabs, and crowds galore.