23 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
23 lines
3.5 KiB
Plaintext
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Date: 01 Dec 2011 01:28
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Topic: One Moment I Regret
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Modified: 23 Dec 2011 15:58
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I am going to break the chronological chain here, to talk briefly about a recent memory that’s been haunting me. I think it’s important.
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I first came to New York in 2009. It was CJ, in fact, who invited me here (and found me a job). After being here about a month, CJ invited me -- because I was still too cautious to invite her -- to a performance of Peter And The Wolf narrated by one of her favorite fiction authors, Neil Gaiman. We had a fantastic night. We met up for dinner, had a long conversation about her travails in Russia, and the struggle with her fledgling business, and then we walked to the mall to watch the performance.
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After the break, they padded out the evening with a short list of movie music and crowd-pleasers, topping it all off with a Strauss waltz. I’d felt it coming the director paused to encourage everyone to get up and dance. The urge to ask her was so strong that I started hiding in my coat, sliding away, tapping my foot. How could I? I wasn’t even dating her at that point. We were just friends. I’d just moved there. I was so much older. I couldn’t dance anyway. I’d embarrass her. The mind filled with reasons as many reasons were needed to shore up the tide rising in my heart. Mustn’t let the river overflow its banks.
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Those excuses are like bricks. Building up one by one. Gradually loading me down. I could feel my body getting heavier and heavier as they accumulated in the form of tension around my shoulders and neck.
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CJ stood up. She wanted me to ask her. I could see it in her face. But I told myself it was because she wanted to leave. One last surge. I looked at her and smiled. “I love this music!” I whispered. The cover story. I’m agitated because I enjoy Strauss waltzes. Heh. She was swaying a little, but not too much. I don’t think she realized she was.
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This was nonsense. I was deluding myself. How shameful. How manipulative. This is entirely inappropriate. This is NOT why she brought you here. I sat back down. The guilt and shame bricks are always enough to bring my to my senses.
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The music came to an end, and we left the hall out the back entrance. We drifted slowly along the length of the pier, continuing our conversations from earlier, all the way back to the subway. We both felt joy in that evening, and our friendship was strengthened by the outing, but ever since, I’ve always felt just a twinge of regret.
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Why? Well, because it was a missed opportunity. CJ and I eventually did open up to each other, and this blog is a testament to that. But that moment during the concert, when I let decades of self-doubt and self-hatred rule my relationship with her, I passed on a chance to be _free_. To show CJ who I really was, what I was really experiencing, how I really felt. I passed on a chance to let her decide what to do with that information. I passed on a chance to trust her. To trust myself. To love her fully.
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And I wanted to share this here, because it occurs to me, that it might _never_ have come again. And that would have been a supreme tragedy. A failure in failing to risk failure. A surrender to fear and self-loathing. And I don’t ever want anyone to feel what that’s like. Yes, I have felt it before. Which will be the subject of upcoming posts I’m sure. But for now, I just wanted to say, don’t let the fear of the pain of rejection push you away from what you know is good and true. Don’t let your fear of rejection become a self-fulfilling prophecy of isolation.
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Dare to be honest, and love will come to you.
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