Come What May...

As you know, I was woken on Tuesday morning by some 6:00 AM drunken-Narc phone calls. I managed to get back to sleep for a few hours, spent a lovely afternoon with B and then headed over to AA.

After the meeting I turned on my phone and had several messages from Narc, telling me that he was going out to dinner with James, that he was back from dinner with James and that he wanted me to come over.

I went home directly after the meeting and packed a bag while I called him. I couldn't go straight down there, after all, as I had to figure out what to wear to LilSis's rehearsal dinner the next night.

When I got there, he answered the door naked and erect. It's the same as his old modus operandi, only he doesn't have the usual bottle of wine in hand anymore. I breezed past him to drop my things off.

"I was just laying down for a bit," he said, moving back into the bedroom.

I followed him and lay down next to him. He was further up on the bed, so I rested with my head on his stomach and we just talked for a while. He has some kind of Narcy New-Age music playing, the lights were dim, and I felt a cozy glow inside deep inside my stomach. It was nice.

Narc started to tell me that had stumbled upon the website of a woman he had briefly been in love with in college. I had heard snippets of this story before (usually told drunk), but I finally got the whole account. He met this girl in college and had a crush on her. They emailed back and forth for a while after he graduated and was living in New Orleans. Finally, she moved down to New Orleans (Narc was running some sort of "reality show" website dot com company and she moved into the house). At the same time, his best friend Adam came down to New Orleans for a month or two and ended up making a "game" of it and seduced the girl and screwed Narc over and completely broke his heart. I asked him why he had such a "best friend" and he said that he wasn't sure, that he always has a guy like that in his life-- that James is the new Adam.

Later, things got a little bit strange, though, when he told me that one of his angel/guides, "Melinda," had told him six months in advance that this would happen to him (even telling him when it would happen, within a three day time span) and that his guide told him "we've invested a lot of energy in you, so you have to try not to kill yourself when this happens, even though you'll want to."

I wasn't sure what to say about all that except "Yeah, you've told me about Melinda before."

(Lest you forget, she's the same guardian angel who told him to become a vegetarian a few years back.)

Anyway, we also ended up talking about the car wreck he was in a few years ago, and the fact that he tried to kill himself staying with his mom while he recovered. So, he removed himself from her house, went to a motel, and lay there for three months, alone, largely immobile, watching television 12 hours a day. I hate that things like that have happened to him.

Of course, I've heard about his accident before too, but usually he doesn't talk about that kind of stuff when he's sober. I'm not sure why I'm bothering to recount all of that here, except for the fact that it was changing my feelings. I was flooded with that mothering, protective, overwhelming sweet painful feeling and although it wasn't "passion," it was desperately close to feeling "in love." And that's dangerous for me.

So, we had sex and it felt a little more like love and like I said, it was dangerous for me.

"I don't think I'll ever get over my past," he said.

"But it is possible, Narc."

"Yeah? How? Write an angry letter to that girl? I mean, what?"

"No... Well... I mean... I've started to heal from mine, but I know you don't want to hear about how."

"How?" he asked.

"Well, I don't want to get into it, but honestly-- through my fourth and fifth step. I know you don't like the idea of AA, but I have to tell you-- it's changing my life and it's the only thing I've ever found to help me heal from my past."

"Maybe I should go to AA," he said glumly. "I have to stop doing this to my life anyway... late nights with James."

"Maybe you should. It's working for me..."

He paused. I was afraid to say anything to break the silence.

"But if I didn't go out," he continued, "I would never meet anyone. I would never see anyone. I would never do anything."

"It feels like that now," I said. "But your patterns would change. Maybe you should figure out a way to do some work in which you come into contact with other people you won't need to go find people at night. Maybe you should go work for a production company or something like that. Do something drastically different!"

"Hmmm...." He was brooding.

"If I didn't go to AA meetings at night, I would still be desperate to go to bars," I went on. "Doing graduate work is also really isolating. I know what it's like to have to carve out a place in your day to see other people."

"What do people in AA do? Play board games?" he scoffed.

"Board games? Not that I've encountered. People hang out and talk. There are so many interesting people there. People go to diners and coffee shops and talk-- the same thing you do at a bar without the booze. I don't know... Pixie and I just hung out in the park the other day. But what you do is up to you... My group went on a hike last weekend. There were some softball games this summer. I'm not into that kind of stuff though."

"Maybe I should," he sighed.

I kept quiet just then. I wasn't sure what to say and I kind of couldn't believe it.

Later on, we moved into the living room. Narc told me that he's stressed out because he has to call back his building management. They're on his back because of multiple noise complaints.

"My neighbors hate me," he said. "Management hates me. They want to kick me out."

I hated everyone else in his building at that moment. (B calls it "mafioso loyalty" when I get like that. Others call it "codependency.")

"The last thing I remember from last night is being out with James," he explained. "Then, the next thing I know, I was back here with some strange guy playing video games."

"Do you remember calling me?"

"Not really..."

I remember that kind of unmanageability.

Narc wasn't the only one who did the talking. I talked about a lot of things too... things from my past. And then, strangely, the topic of my abortion came up. Narc and I haven't mentioned that since August two years ago. I never wanted to talk to him about it again after that violent night. But somehow it came up and I said I didn't really want to talk about it then either.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I still feel uncomfortable about it," I said. "I still feel sad and guilty and a whole slew of things that make no sense to me."

He tried to comfort me in an incredibly awkward way, telling me that it was the right decision, that I was drinking and drugging, that neither of us wanted it. It was weird.

"I don't doubt our decision," I said. "I just don't feel good about it either."

I didn't want to talk about it anymore with him, so I tried to change the subject. But the fact that a flash of "truth" about the past surfaced is just a testament to the kind of strange night it was.

So, from there we went back to what we are most comfortable with-- hiding in sex. Narc started to tell me that he had masturbated all day thinking of ----- about me. I was surprised. He still thinks of me when he masturbates? I thought men weren't supposed to be like that.

So, I wasn't sure how to feel. The whole night was a strange combination of intimacy and distance, emotional connection and abstract detachment. Identifying feelings is something I'm learning to do in life in general right now, and the challenge of doing that in my relationship with Narc is just way beyond my level.

So, we went to bed early. There's always more comfort in bed. But even there, I felt a strange electric current around me.

Intimacy with Narc is never a free thing, but that just makes it all the more wonderful when it is granted. For example, when we sleep side by side if he's not drunk and clinging to me madly, he often won't touch me at all. Sometimes he'll move his hand to rest on my hip, as he did that night. It is always a calculated move, his hand always resting softly, as if I shouldn't take it for granted. There is an implicit promise that as suddenly as it was granted, his touch might be withdrawn. Most often, his fingers are curled under into a fist. He will rest his fist on me.

But sometimes...sometimes, he will cautiously unfurl his fingers, slowly and never firmly, exposing his open palm, letting me feel the openness of his whole hand, the extension of his fingers. That is how he gives. It is how he gave to me that night-- in way that is quiet and gentle, a relaxation full of tension, a gesture that is so insanely vulnerable coming from him. I love those moments.

Those are the moments in which I still love him with a protectiveness that always feels new to me. I love him for his limits. I think that's why I have trouble getting myself out of this tangle.

I woke him up early on Wednesday morning with a blow job (as per his request, which I thought was cute, but I still felt sort of silly doing it) and we had sex and then lay in bed together for a long time talking. He is still as depressed as he ever was, and it's strange-- it shed light more and more on the fact that I am not... I am changing. I forget that often, but when I return to Narc, it's impossible to forget. I am definitely getting better. I am crawling out of the darkness.

He said he didn't know what he was going to do with himself for the day... maybe read his friend's script. He had to call the management office from his building and deal with those noise complaints. I told him that I thought it was good that we had woken up early so maybe he could get himself on a better schedule. Then I got up, got dressed, kissed him goodbye and headed out to have my hair colored.

New York has been blessed with a beautifully dewy and chilly week, bizarre weather for late August, but I'm loving it. I bundled into my blue sweatshirt and sat on a park bench on Spring Street, sipping a protein shake and waiting for it to be 9:00 AM so the hair salon would open. I just refreshed my current color-- red (but a sort of reddish brown) and I love the way it came out.

From there, it was straight to Penn Station. LilSis and JBC's rehearsal dinner was last night, but I promised my mom to head out there much earlier in the afternoon. She picked me up near her office and we drove back to the house. KW was there waiting to greet me. (I don't know if you guys remember the "W" family-- they were our next door neighbors when I was growing up-- a family of five kids. Even though we left my dad and moved away when I was seven, we've always stayed in touch. KW is the one whose wedding I went to in San Francisco back in August 2005. She lives out there but flew into NY a few days early for the wedding.) Jeanie was also there, the woman who had been our nanny and a second (or third) grandmother to us when we were little, also staying with us until we left my dad. She came in from Virginia.

Jeanie was napping, but KW and I sat and had some tea and chatted. She is having some serious marital issues and is going through a very tough time right now. It has been very hard for her to get pregnant and when she finally did, she miscarried. I feel so bad for her. Anyway, after our talk, we headed over to the dressmaker with my mom to pick up our gowns.

Mine looked gorgeous. I tried it on and was very happy. My mom was worried that hers is too sexy. It is sexy, but she looks gorgeous too and I think she is just paranoid that she chose to wear a bold red and doesn't look anything like a 60 year old mother of the bride!

Back at my parents house, we met up with BigSis and LilSis who had just returned from picking up LilSis' wedding gown. I decided to buy LilSis and JBC a spa package for their honeymoon in Aruba, so BigSis and I slipped away into my mom's bedroom and she helped me arrange it. (She's been to the same hotel in Aruba, so she knew what's what...) After that, I had to lay down and rest for a while because I am still not back to my normal energy levels as I recover from the surgery.

I rested in the den and watched the tail end of an I Love Lucy episode and then some Leave it to Beaver. I was thinking about Narc. The absolute worst thing about getting close to him is that it leaves me wanting a normal relationship with the ability to contact him like a normal person, but I can't have that. Narc disappears until he wants to reappear. I have never had and never will have any control over that, and I have to just accept it. (More lessons regarding "expectations," I suppose.) Anyway, I was surprised when, phone in hand, he suddenly texted me.

Narc: Ugh... can't believe I ended up sleeping until noon! Man, this depression really is no fun...

Hyde: Weird. I was literally about to text you and ask how you were. I'm sorry you're depressed. I want to talk to you more about it b/c I've been there but am climbing out. I have some ideas I wanted to tell you. As for me, picked up my dress. Now watching "Leave it to Beaver" and dodging family & dinner set up.

Narc: Just spoke with woman in my building, still alive. Dodged a bullet, phew...

Hyde: Yay! So, your days in Tribeca are secure. :) Was she mean?

Narc: She was rather understanding, I suppose, considering the number of complaints, apparently.

Hyde: Well, that's good. I want to beat up your complaining neighbors for making you feel bad. I need more boxing lessons.

Narc: Nah, just need to cease bringing people back to my place at all hours...

Hyde: Well, that's up to you. What are you doing with the rest of your day?

And then he never wrote back. Classic. He just stopped writing to me, never answering the question. So, I closed my phone and tried to swallow my mounting anxiety.

I couldn't dwell on it for long, though, because my mom came to get me to start getting ready for the dinner. KW's mom and sister, DW and HW had just arrived, having driven in from New Jersey. I fixed my makeup and then went to join them in the living room to entertain them while my mom got changed.

JBC's parents were officially hosting the dinner. His dad didn't show up though. I don't quite understand the dynamics of his family, and I know that JBC was quite upset about it, but I'm not sure what the official excuse was to explain the no-show. LilSis and JBC live in a huge apartment downstairs in my parents house. The entire apartment is above ground and has an entrance that opens onto the back patio and the swimming pool, so dinner was served out of their kitchen and everybody ate milling around the pool, or in the living room (those who had trouble pulling themselves away from the Mets game!). LilSis looked so pretty and happy and it was so sweet. She's only three years younger than I am, but I will always look at her as my cute little sister.

Overall, the dinner went really well. LilSis and JBC made a nice toast and gave out gifts to their bridal party. BigSis and Bro-in-Law drove me back to the train at around 10:00 PM. It was a long day for me.

While on the train, I talked to StarGazer on the phone for a while (sorry, NDN!) and when I hung up, saw I had five text messages! Two from Pixie, one from B, one from Chapstick and one from Hammer who informed me that she and the Alaskan were eating at Isle when Narc and "some guy" peeked into the restaurant. It made me laugh that I got such a prompt update.

Anyway, I was exhausted by the time I got home. So, I gratefully unwound and was in bed by midnight.

So, at the end of the night, nothing was resolved except that another day had been lived. Narc makes me warm and I felt close to him. But at the same time, he wakes me drunk at 6:00 AM, ignores my text messages... nothing has changed. My family makes me warm and I feel close to them. But at the same time, there is a piece of me that still doesn't quite feel connected or "a part of."

I don't know...

What I do know is that I have a lot of errands to run today and that I've got to finish up my syllabus, as this weekend is going to be full with the wedding. So, I'll leave it at that for now.

lots of love,
h