No Vacancy

I swim in a sea of false starts and self-induced happy endings. I finish the sentence without checking the grammar. I allow myself to go there, to feel, to believe, without checking first if there is something to believe in.

1. My heart has a stomped-on feeling. It's not a bad thing in and of itself, considering the glamour often contained in confusion, or the morbid satisfaction in noticing that even your morning coffee tastes like unrequited love. It's that old, familiar sting; the tender heart, which means I'll probably end up doing something exceedingly stupid, like buy a pair of clogs. I've been flirting with a pair in the window of 'Grasshopper,' where--between pathetic sighs--I contemplate whether money actually can buy happiness, and if it does, if I should buy it in the form of caramel-colored Svens. If I had money. And if I was brave enough to enter a store for any reason other than to use the bathroom, hoping we won't be evicted when Benji squirts soap all over the floor.

This entry began as a meditation on 'types,' inspired one afternoon by a conversation with my grandma. Over a pile of clementine oranges, she recounted the tale of my grandfather's marriage proposal. "It wasn't a proposal so much as a suggestion," she told me, dividing the citrus with her perfect little knife-nails. "We were on a double date, and he thought it might be neat if we went down to Las Vegas and got married." I let my scoff ring 'round the room, but scarcely dented its well-honed nonchalance.

"Yep," my grandpa replied. "I had a load of produce to deliver down South, and figured I might as well make it worth the drive."

I ate in silence, trying not to reveal that my life's only illustration of a functional marriage had just been reduced to an errand. "But don't worry," Grandma interjected. "He had to move fast, or I would have gotten away. We had just broken up for a month or so, and he realized he didn't like seeing me with anyone else."

Ooh, intrigue. An almost-grandpa. You were with someone else? Who?

"Bob."

Bob?

"Yep."

Pause.

So you've dated a total of two people, and they've both been named Bob?

"That's right."

Thus began the contemplation of types. When people look for commonalities among previous partners, it seems they pull on a physical thread; hair and eye color, body type, height. Sometimes they list activities like playing guitar, or World of Warcraft. I've even heard arguments for the ever-elusive personality type, such as Outgoing! or Deeply introspective! or my personal favorite, Horrifically antisocial in group environments! What no one ever talks about are names. And why would they? However, the patterns do exist; take my cousin, who had to clarify which long-term Ryan she was referencing until she eventually married Ryan F. Likewise, my sister has dated at least three Matts. Throw in a couple more and you have one of those VH1 shows where 'Ashlee,' 'Ashley,' and 'Ashleigh' must be individualized for behind-the-scenes confessionals, if nowhere else in their bikini-clad lives.

So, at what point do we stop classifying? In general conversation, I've always resisted it. I pretend to be deep and mysterious, subject to change... even if I have worn the same jean jacket for most of my life. My grandma, on the other hand, has been with the same man for sixty-five years; which makes me wonder if she even sees my grandpa as a type, or simply a fixture in the chair that belongs three feet away from the place where she keeps the remote. I wonder. If we get so entrenched in types that we can't see the forest for the trees, that doesn't change the fact that they are there... and more often than not, some variation of green. I wonder.

Then it occurred to me: I do have a type.

Unavailable.


2. In the immediate aftermath of this revelation, which wormed its way into most conversations I had last week, I realized how silly it sounds. In actuality, I got a ton of shit from anyone I told it to, and silliness emerged from there. But like most ideas that ring a bell, unavailable clanged in my head; and like most people do, I clung tight to the sound. What does it mean, anyway? To be unavailable? I ran through a list in my head, and realized that of the people who have made their way into my heart--or at least stopped in my head on their way there--a disproportionate number have been:

a) in a serious relationship with someone else
b) emotionally stunted
c) on another continent

In other words, totally and completely unavailable.

I shared this with my boss, who blamed it on age. "There's a simple solution," she told me, tucking her phone into her backpack. "Date older."

"Men your age, even close to your age, don't know what they want. Avoid the problem altogether and just... start browsing in a different section."

So, it's my age--the age made immortal by television, and by many a thirtysomething pretending to be younger for the purpose of entertainment: looking everything the part of a vibrant twentysomething, only minus the bad skin and colossally awkward existential crisis. It's my age. But what age am I on the inside? Most days, I oscillate between seven years old and seventy. Like a baby in an old-person suit, only minus the creep-factor. I am caught between somewhere and something, at once awed and saddened by the world. So how would dating someone older than me--than my body's age, if not my heart's--solve anything?

It would eliminate the drama, for one. Most people in their thirties and forties have managed to tone down the fart jokes, if not eliminate them altogether. Then again, my uncle is in his fifties and still eats coco-puffs out of plastic bowls, which he balances atop his stack of Playboys. Age is relative.

Unavailability, however, is precise.

It began on the playground, Roosevelt School, when I was six. Developed a crush on one of the boys in my class, but shortly thereafter, transferred to OAS: and between imaginary unicorn playdates, pined for the one that got away. Not much later, a good friend and I developed crushes on each other; always syncopated, never simple. When he finally kissed me, I shrank like a sea anemone... sucking into my skin out of the terror of possibility. When he got a girlfriend, however, I reserved the right to pine mournfully, bemoaning lost opportunities and the threat of my own aloneness.

When my first boyfriend told me he loved me, I wasn't ready. He doted after me, and I disappeared. Instead, I went for one who was in love with my best friend, then one who eventually fell in love with my other best friend, and a handful of others whom I spotted out the windows of moving cars. There was the college fling, milliseconds before I took off for a semester abroad; and let us not forget Bali, where I learned it is possible to have a chip on your shoulder the size of a meteorite and still be able to operate a vehicle. On an island of 4 million people, I fall for the one who is not allowed to date. What are the chances? Well, high--considering even the deepest relationship of my life was spent on a seesaw of are they-aren't they: a game that, at its worst, hurt others with its volatility... and even at its best, hurt me with it. I became accustomed to never knowing where we stood, or if the person I'd chosen would answer when I came knocking. The lights can be on for a long time, it seems, before you realize someone can't come to the door.

But! Recently, I have tried a more lighthearted approach. Just two months ago, I drove out of my way to meet up with an interest from college, to explore what possibilities did or did not exist. He invited me, so I came; I arrived at his house, antsy but confident, and we proceeded to walk around the neighborhood. When we met up with one of his female friends, I didn't think twice. It wasn't until she kissed him--at one point, leaning across me in order to do so--that I began to wonder if I had gotten my signals crossed. Late that night, my mom came in to make sure I'd arrived home safely. "How'd it go?" she asked, and I pulled the covers off my face. "I don't know which part was better," I gurbled. "That he was a total bore, or that he took me to meet his girlfriend."

Yes.

It has become a joke that, in a room of a dozen people, I will zero in on the only one with a life partner. Likewise, show me the man with the emotional availability of a tadpole, and that will be the one I want to marry. Is it some freak blip in my genetic code? Or simply human nature? When someone is in a relationship, they put off an energy; a confidence that makes them more attractive. Beyond that, there is the masochistic reality that wanting what we can't have makes us want it even more. And believe me, I live with a two-year-old. When I tell him he can't cross the street, he'll do everything to ensure that he crosses as rapidly and recklessly as possible; and while I like to think it will leave with his baby teeth, I know better. We've all played in traffic. And I don't think dating outside my age pool will do anything to quell that irrational urge, nor do I think that the unavailable I'm drawn to can be translated to a simple lack of vacancy: there is a deeper element to it, a paradoxical presence that I find impossible to resist. As much as I don't care to admit it, I am drawn to darkness. I am pulled to those who get caught in their internal nets, because I recognize them... and every once and a while, one recognizes me back. Our eel eyes lock on each other through their watery glass, and we shudder.


3. My second Sunday in Portland, I went to ecstatic dance at the Tiffany Center. Somewhere in the second hour, I pulled myself out of the sweat and over to one of the tarot altars; knowing absolutely nothing about a 'tarot altar' except that this one happened to be draped in yellow chiffon. It was the summer solstice. I let my hand fall to a card, studied the picture, and looked up the meaning; teeny words told me that someone was entering my experience, someone with whom I have the potential to create beyond my current realm of comprehension. It's a one-time window, apparently, and not a matter of how or if it is coming... only when. Naturally, I wanted it in writing. With an exact date, perhaps, and an indicator of what I should be wearing when said vision-bearer enters my life. But I made my way back to the dance floor on a wave of anticipation, and chose to focus on the other feeling that was seeping out of my heart: Foresight. The tarot told me what I already knew. To the top of my skin, there it was... the tingling when you've met someone's spirit a thousand times before, and from that moment onward, feel the story unfold outside your range of motion. When a soul sees a heartbeat, we have no choice--we can only slide into its beat.

What happens next is a matter of opinion. Of masterful storytelling.

Interlude: Perhaps you are telling stories with one another, and you tell him a name. (Names are a common denominator). Perhaps he tells you he is in love with that name, and nausea washes through you; a snap so potent, so pure, that you feel like you are are inside the particularly good lick of an 1980's song. You want to tell him, you make me want to listen to 80's music. Not I love you, not I'm sorry, not that. Just a key-tar solo and the kick of a bass. But instead, you remain silent: it's the same self-preservation that searches for neutral thoughts in the moments before sleep, giving the subconscious anything to hang onto that isn't him. Consciousness foams in and out, and instead of studying the lines on his face in the map of your mind, you are thinking that--for some people--cilantro tastes like soap. Perhaps this thought will make its way into your dream, and you will avoid seeing each other there. Or perhaps, you open your eyes next to each other in the waking world; fresh from each other's dreams, you can only wonder why he met you in his. No use crying over kissed fingertips. There's a thought. Are you playing me? 

But he dreams of flying. And it's all you've ever known.

4. If you've never found yourself here before, you've probably found yourself staring at someone's face as they spell out their u-n-a-v-a-i-l-a-b-i-l-i-t-y behind the cute curve in their lip that you've begun to memorize. I was there recently, and was reminded of how this moment always stands frozen in time. Suddenly you're aware of every smell, sight, sound; the feeling of trying to drink someone in because you're afraid it might be the last time, and when your brain replays this later, you want to make sure you get his eyebrows right. What about that lip curve? And the place where his shoulders begin?

Probably, like me, your brain starts to munch on old standbys... thoughts like, I am so so so so so so so so tired of feeling this way and this always happens and won't anybody ever want to be with me, too? It feels like everyone else is part of a secret society that you've lost your card for. Like that stupid admiral's club at the airport. It's a terrible feeling, but oddly, a powerful one: thrumming with imminent aloneness, beautiful sorrow. I tried describing this to someone recently, the sweetness bound up in sadness, but the subtlety was lost. Or maybe it's something he'll think of years from now, as he'll think of me; partially realized, perhaps, but stubbornly un-forgotten.

"I'm tender."

I know, Tender. 

Q: How many ways are there to make Red from Tender?

I've come to this feeling again and again, of inadequacy, and only just wondered whether it's worth letting go of. I rode my bike home that night, cold... and just like that, everything changed!*

*No it didn't. That's what happens in the movie version.

In reality, it was never really there at all. All the beautiful drama, the hyper-awarness that comes from wanting to appear mysterious to others--the idea that I, in the fishbowl of my head, can only be seen when magnified from the inside out--it's all a story. A different story, one I'm just learning to tell, is how to accept things as they are. Not what they could be, not what they feel like in a moment of recognition: for what they are. The sound it makes is like saying I love you over and over again inside your head, even though it feels unnatural. That type of unconditional love, according to Elena Brower, exists only there: it's the foundation for energy, the roots to take flight. And you know what? She's right.

5. There are terms of endearment and mutual fascination that cannot be captured in regular language.

I can hear your heart... I can hear your heart beating in your armpit. 

You know?

5. It's funny how we seek validation. Like, how I can't seem to trust my own instinct; I have to know if someone feels the way I do, because that will alleviate the compulsive need to check my internal radar for cracks. If it's cracked, then at least I can get away with convincing myself that they are the tricky ones--not me. If he never calls me again, it won't be because I'm unavailable. 

But to whom? 

In relationships, I tend to slip away. I become so saturated in someone else's thoughts and emotions, and into the thirst for each milestone, that my heart and head cease communication entirely. I'm unavailable to myself in the biggest way, as many are; in relationships as in unexpected phone calls, stomach-dropping memories, or in any moment where adrenaline takes over and we cease to exist. Somehow, though, realizing this--understanding my tendency--has taken its power away. I feel like the girl in Labyrinth when she realizes that David Bowie, despite being devastatingly sexy, is really just a man in tights. A magical king at the helm of a puppet empire, sure; but a king with flaws, and a man all the same.

Some things are outside our range of motion, but it doesn't mean we can't get a grip. My heart searches for metaphor, and for that softness where the brain meets the spine. In moments, I feel I am approaching my truth; my sadness, and the exact weight of what it feels like to believe in everything. I'm navigating types.

"There is intimacy in the morning," she said. "In not knowing. Just ask."

Mine, it feels like surrender.

What's yours?