Bristol bound

A thousand dollars and 10 days of my life down hole, but I finally made it.

I got in to Manchester on Tuesday morning, and spent 2 nights with Amy, a former team mate and good friend. It was teriffic to stomp around on the old turf for a bit, and I got to see a bunch of friends. Not as many as i would have liked, but I only had 2 days rather than the originally intended 4. I even had the priveledge of spending several extremely enjoyable hours in the company of the incomparable unconquerable HBM, which almost made up for the shattering disappointment of not seeing my lanky Scot. The realization that you don't mean as much to someone else as he does to you is one seriously hard pill to swallow. No, not realization. Acceptance. In the back of my mind I've known it for a long time, but I always managed to make excuses for him, to justsify why he only emailed once every fiscal quarter, why whenever I phoned it was always a bad time, why he didn't want me to stay with him while i was in Manchester. I made excuse after excuse for him in my mind because I was desperatly clinging to the belief that he still cared. I needed to belive it. I didn't/don't want to suffer yet another unrequited love. He said he didn't have any time for me, even though I told him a week in advance when i was coming so that he could make some time. He said he was busy. Every minute for 2 days. He said call me tomorrow I might have an hour free. I called tomorrow. He wasn't free. I was upset. I told him so. My phone card ran out and cut me off. He thought I hung up on him. I didn't have change or time to ring straight back. When i finally did 3 hours later he hung up on me. He wouldn't let me expalin. He wouldn't listen. He hung up. Oh god it hurts. He wouln't speak to me. Over a year I waited. Not a day went by when I didn't think of him, didn't miss him. But I can't make any more excuses. He's made it abundantly clear that he doesn't want me around, that I don't matter to him anymore. How does that happen? How do you suddenly just stop caring for someone? I don't know; I've never done that. If someone who was once kind begins to treat you like shit, lies, cheats, or hits you, then yes, it's easy to stop caring for someone like that. I can understand walking away when you have been maligned or misused. But I never mistreated him. I never did anything to upset him. If I did, he's never told me. I've never lied to him, never cheated on him, never spoke a single unkind word to or about him. And I know he cared about me, too. I know there was a time when I was really special to him. I begin to doubt, and I look back over the memories, the time we spent together, and i know i didn't imagine it. He cared, he really did. So how did he just stop? What happened? Where did it go? Did he wake up one morning and suddenly decide that I didn't matter any more? Or did it happen slowly? Did the memory of me fade? Should i have written more often, so he wouldn't forget me? Out of sight, out of mind? What happened to absence makes the heart grow fonder? Did I do something wrong? Oh god why is this happening again? I didn't want to fall in love. i was going to get my MA and go back to the states and live happily ever after. i didn't want another broken fucking heart. That's why i held on to the thread that it might work out for so long. Not again. I can't take it again. We were so good together. We complimented one another. We shared the same values. He gave me a sense of serenity that I've never felt before. Whenever he walked into the room I'd let go a breath I didn't realize I was holding and think "Ah, everything's OK now-- Jamie's here." He started it. He was the one who began coming in to my room each eveing before bed to wish me a good night. Every single night. "Well, that's me off to bed. Good night, CB." "Good night, Jamie. Sleep well." "And you." Every night. He was the one who put his arm around me while we watched the Diwali fireworks from my room. When I complained that my back was sore and i had no one to massage it, he was the one who offered to rub it for me. That's how the whole thing started, really. He's got such a beautiful back. Long and lean and muscular. His spine is about a meter long. it just keeps going and going and going. If Michaelangelo were alive today that sculpture would be called "Jamie." He started it. And he ended it. I guess that's his perogative. But why? What did i do? What didn't I do? Over a year I waited. When they told in the Manchester airport that they were sending me back to America I should have been worried about my degree. i should have been worried about my future. Instead, all I could think was how I couldn't wait any longer to see Jamie. I'd waited long enough, i couldn't wait any more. Don't make me wait anymore, please! It doesn't matter now. Nothing matters now.

I got in the car and drove to Bristol. On the road, behind the wheel. I've always loved driving. I love the sense of freedom, the sense of control. When you are in the driver's seat of a zippy car with a full tank of gas and good tunes on the radio you are unstoppable. You can do whatever you want, go wherever you want. You are the master of your fate, at the helm of your destiny. In high school when I was feeling particularly miserable (which was fairly often) I would grab the keys of my metallic brown 1984 Chevy Celebrity, crank up the Oldies station, and head north on 127, bleating out "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" and "I will survive" at the top of my lungs with the windows down in the middle of the winter and feeling the freezing air whipping my hair about my ears while the snowflakes in the headlights gave the effect of travelling through hyperspace. Therapy.

On thrusday I drove to bristol. A little Vauxhall Astra something or other. Deep boot, zippy engine. The kind of car i would consider buying if i were in the market. It was grey and drizzly (welcome to an island in the north Atlantic), but I was driving. I was leaving him. I was actively taking myself away. I was NOT left behind. I was leaving. I was in charge. Therapy. And though through much of my year in Manchester i felt i could live very happily here, driving that car, for the first time i felt I do live here. This is my home now. I live in england. I'm not visiting any more. This is my home. Welcom home, me.

I didn't get lost. Take the M6 to the M5 to the M4. How easy is that? Until I got to bristol. Then i got lost. No street signs fucking anywhere. Rediculous. Got there in the end, though. Found my accommodation. Decent room, new furniture, big window, wide window sill (good for plants - there's a violet in my future). Only 2 problems: first, no socket in the bathroom. not one! Where are you supposed to plug in a shaver? hairdryer? Curling iron? Electric toothbrush? Good grief. Other problem: Electic Pepto Bismol pink wall. That's the only way to describe it. it's hideous. there's no other word for it. For 2 days now I've been trying to understand why on earth anyone would ever paint a wall that colour (unless you're on Changing Rooms and you really hate your neighbors). then it dawned on me: it's a total fucking joke. the guys who renovated this building had a huge fucking laugh over this. They're sitting in their local right now tippping a pint and pissing themselves over the colour of this room. I've never like pink. Even when i was 3 years old I hated pink. I hated being stereotyped. I hated that people assumed i liked pink just because i was a girl. So i started disliking pink. I didn't want to be predictable. i didn't want people to suss me that easlily. i didn't want to be obvious. That's why when i was 3 years old and my parents moved me out of the nursery I asked them to paint my room blue.

On friday I went to my department to register. I missed registration. You know why. I was walking toward the English building, and i asked the bloke next to me "Excuse me. is this the English department?" he said "yes. what are you looking for?" I explained "I'm not positive, but I think this is the place to start. i missed registration due to a travel mishap (yes, i actually said 'travel mishap.' Apparently i'm already picking up the british penchant for understatement), and i need to get my registration sorted."

He replied (and i swear to god I'm not making this up) "you must be CB! Welcome!"

WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?

He continued, "we've heard all about you. i'm so glad you finally made it safe and sound. I'm John, the postgraduate coordinator for the english deapartment faculty. Come with me, i'll introduce you to everyone you need to know and we'll get everything taken care of."

John took me to the department office, where they rang Steve, a professor, who came crashing downstairs with a huge smile on his face and his hand extened before he'd even made it through the door and who exclaimed "CB! So glad you're here! What an ordeal you've had! We've been so worried about you!" (He spoke in exclamation points.) "I'm just off to a meeting, but can you stop by at 2? You can?! Teriffic! Come by my office and we'll get everthing sorted! So good to meet you at last! I'm off to a meeting, must dash!" (and as he's flying out the door...) "John here will take you for a cup of tea in the meantime!..."

Over and over again, with every person it was the same reaction. It was as though the entire department was on tenterhooks for my arrival. They all knew the story, bless them, I didn't have to repeat the tale a thousand times (i'm getting rather sick of telling it).

And it was the department's collective reaction to seeing me that really drove it home with jamie. Here were total strangers, never met me, no reason for them to give a shit whether i'm here there or in timbuktu. But they did give a shit. they were all so genuinely happy to see me, and they'd never even met me. They'd never me, yet they were waiting for me. They were worried about me. They cared. But Jamie, who's seen the most intimate parts of my heart and my body, didn't care. He wasn't worried, he wasn't waiting. He doesn't want me around. Acceptance is fucking painful.

Well, new city, new life. New adventures to be had, new friends to be met. Found out last night that Bristol's offering a new rowing scholarship. I'm applying for that. Went straight to the gym and climbed on an erg. Finally something to motivate me.

well, that's bristol, and that's my present state of mind: shattered, but optimistic. Not optimistic about love - I never want to fall in love again; it's not worth it - but optimistic about the university, the rowing, my future, and life in general.

Oh, and i'm already picking up an accent. it's quite funny, really. I've got two vowels down. I'm not trying, it just happens. Even wierder, I'm dreaming in an English accent! That's my goofy subconscious for you.