Loving, Leaving

Lately, I have been re-visiting Vagabonding, the travel site that I have liked for years now. I chanced upon this entry that is about loving and leaving: the perils of falling in love while on the road, or while temporarily ensconced in some place. I can truly relate, and left a comment on the post, something I rarely do.

“For commitment-phobics, this could be a sweet deal, knowing that the relationship already comes with a built-in way out. For me though, while I am not strictly traveling 3-4 months a year, I am a temporary resident in another country and I go home every 3-4 months. It effectively puts relationships in limbo status — you can’t expect to form fully committed relationships where you are currently in country, and yet you can’t keep up a steady one at home because you’re away for most of the year. It does not mean you can’t have any relationships, though, it just means (well for me, at least) that you have to set more realistic expectations. That, and you better be prepared for a lot of goodbyes.”

I wonder if this will be true for me anytime soon.

The Season’s Soft Fade

It all fits together somehow, the series of little events that have begun to draw this year to a close. Each one signifies an ending, a tying up of loose ends, telling me to gracefully accept the passing of things I used to (or have tried to) hold dear. I had always imagined a different way of growing old, but this, I guess is how it will unfold for me.

It’s my season for forgetting, and it starts slowly.

I kissed an old woman who no longer remembers me. Someone introduces me to his wife, his unblinking stare pleading with me, “Please, for the love of God, don’t be surprised. ” A grown man buys me a beer, assuming that I still drink it. I am asked for the nth time “When did you stop smoking?” in this, my ninth year free of nicotine. In the darkness, inside a speeding car, I am introduced as Somebody’s Ex. A curious crowd intermittently talks to me across the table, but not one is brave enough to ask the question that’s in everyone’s eyes. I’m told that I look like the ghost of the girl in that movie, and I just smile. No, I do not. Or at least, I do not see the resemblance.

I turn to someone for a little solace, and he turns, unknowingly, away.

At the end of each night out, I go home to a full house, but as always, I go home alone. And I’m sad that all this doesn’t make me feel anything but a vague ache, as though everything that’s recently happened is already nostalgia. It’s a faint kind of sadness, not particularly keen or piercing, just dust falling to dust, just the blue tones of one more evening descending, just the sinking of a dull sun and the soft, silent fade to gray.

Just me in the great big world, growing old.

Androphobia, Anyone?

Just as I closed the taxi door and settled in for the ride, the taxi driver asked me, “Weren’t you afraid, being the only girl waiting there in the long line of men?” I was taken aback, a little, by the question. I did notice that I was the only XX chromosome in the rather dark waiting area, but I didn’t think much about it, and didn’t feel even just a little bit scared.

I mumbled something about, “Oh, they were mostly construction crew from my building…” and the driver nodded, but felt impelled to add, “You can never be too careful, these days.”

Come to think of it, was I ever careless? I pondered that for a while. Despite all that’s happened to me in the past few years, the dire circumstances that have shaped life as I know it now, I still do not fear men. I had to Google that—androphobia—the fear of men. In my former job all my bosses were male, I worked with mostly male counterparts, would walk into a meeting with a roomful of men as the only female, and I liked it when they all scrambled to give me a chair. Men are often intimidated by me, as I am not a fragile looking woman, nor am I in any way, reticent. I have a marked tendency to say what’s on my mind, gender be damned. I’ve had relationships where men resented me because I was “bossy.” Or, my personal favorite, “too strong.”

I have male friends that I’ve known for years who treat me not as one of the guys, but as a girl, who is a friend. There are men I admire and would like to emulate, men who amuse me, men who I can be frank with, flirt openly with, or just quietly sit and have a beer with. They’re males of all kinds—old and young, single, married, or in some sort of relationship, old friends and newer ones—who treat me with respect, and I dare say, some measure of fondness. So, no, I am not afraid of men in general.

But hey wait, should I be?