Goodbye, Alexandria

Right before I met up with Jim, my best friend texted me this final warning: "If you fall in love he will dick you over." When asked for details he revealed Jim's reputation for not returning calls and his proclivity to disappear all together. I replied, "Oh, that's all? I can handle that. I've been through that a hundred times." And so I walked casually, even cavalierly, into the fire.

In the usual fashion, we spent less than 24 hours together and I pressed my heart into your hand and my hope into your back as you walked to your car. You never called back, never responded to my letter. But what did I expect? It took you three years to call me back the first time around and my friend warned me about you, after all. At first I didn't care. Like I said, this is a familiar road to me.

After awhile, though, I found myself whispering the same old wish--about how perfect you are as poem-maker, construction-worker, herb-planter, if only you'd call me back. But I realized for the first time, through the example of you, that all of those things create your signature. Yes, you play the alto sax and yes, you disappear. I can't look at you in fragments. Embrace your art and ignore your practice. These are two parts of a whole person. Just as it can't be changed that you are an oboe-player so too is it a fact of you that you do not call back. What I mean is, I can't look at you and make exceptions. I need to look and see all of you at once, without wishing things were different or believing they can be.

That revelation tided me over for a few days before anger took over and I resisted the urge to leave a new voicemail describing meanness and disrespect. But for who? Was it for me, to resist being silenced? Was it for you, to make you understand? Was it for future women who might be left in your dust as you pull away? I revisited my revelation about the wholeness of your character and resisted placing the call.

Next came the sadness, which manifested as a postcard upon which I wrote the following Grecian poem:

The god forsakes Antony
by Constantine P. Cavafy, 1911

When suddenly, at the midnight hour,
an invisible troupe is heard passing
with exquisite music, with shouts --
your fortune that fails you now, your works
that have failed, the plans of your life
that have all turned out to be illusions, do not mourn in vain.
As if long prepared, as if courageous,
bid her farewell, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all do not be fooled, do not tell yourself
it was a dream, that your ears deceived you;
do not stoop to such vain hopes.
As if long prepared, as if courageous,
as it becomes you who have been worthy of such a city,
approach the window with firm step,
and with emotion, but not
with the entreaties and complaints of the coward,
as a last enjoyment listen to the sounds,
the exquisite instruments of the mystical troupe,
and bid her farewell, the Alexandria you are losing.

I thought, if you read it and you really got it you would see that I am Alexandria and you owe me a goodbye. But I didn't send the postcard. I realized that I am not Alexandria. And you are not either. My Alexandria is the entire collection of beautiful people who, for whatever reason, count the ability to ignore as one of their dearest traits. I can hear a certain kind of music and it is not Jim I need to send some final correspondence to but the bigger figure, the type of person he represents. God is not forsaking me forever, but He is leaving this city of unanswered calls and I am going with him.

So, this is goodbye, with all the courage and respect that I possess tonight--

I want to be hurt differently.

I think I am now ready to have my heart differently broken. It has become tiring to be hurt the same way over and over again. I have grown all I can from being hit at this particular angle. I am prepared and willing to experience a new kind of pain.

Which of course implies the possibility of a new kind of happiness as well.