In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
-TS Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Decisions. We make a thousand and one of them each day - good, bad, indifferent. Sometimes, like poor Mr. Prufrock, we're so worried about what impact those decisions will or won't have we're stuck in a state of inertia that keeps us from doing much of anything at all. And as Greg Dulli of my favorite Cincinnati band ever says ""You've got indecision/and indecision is my enemy."
It has been a year since I made the best decision of my life. I can say this with certainty now, in the sweet hereafter. It didn't even occur to me until I was on the phone yesterday with Cassie, and she mentioned running into him, Paul. Unsurprisingly, she said he gave her a hateful look. I felt bad for ever involving her in that situation, and still do.
I know that at some point all of this boy talk becomes a broken record - everyone is in relationships that are like decisions - good, bad, indifferent. Maybe I shouldn't talk about all of my personal business here, but this has become a journal of sorts for me. I write to get my feelings out, and even if no one read them, I'd keep writing. So this is why I talk about these things so much, because the writing helps me process.
But it's been a year since I've spoken to him in the flesh, the person who I was once closest of all to. I was going home for the weekend, the first time since coming to school - causing a spectacle with Kelsey, we were holding hands walking past his dorm, and he was outside smoking. I'd been ignoring calls and texts for about a month, dodged the bullet when he saw me out and about several times by cleverly ducking behind something. But there he was and he came up to me, waving his hands. He asked if I checked my phone anymore. Where had I been? What was I doing? Why wouldn't I talk to him? He followed me for the block, me giving curt answers all the way. The last image I have is him standing arms spread with "are you really walking away from me" look on his face, mouth open, cigarette in one hand. And I walked away.
My mom and I had a long, late night talk about Paul over pie this summer. I told her a lot of things she didn't know, that I had "forgotten" to mention. They were things I'd only told two other people on this planet. In high school, it was kind of a joke that I was so into Paul and he was so very not into me (which he actually was, but that's another story). I think a lot, not all, of our friends viewed it as stupid high school infatuation that just needed enough drinks to finally happen. Even my mom thought that way. But things were more serious then even I thought until afterwards.
If I could've avoided him totally until this point, I would have. This spring though I finally was forced to say everything to him when he started talking shit to Ben, making me panic with empty threats, putting a strain on our relationship that contributed to its end. At least now he knows, and I know, about all of it. We both said the things that were left unsaid, and haven't spoken since.
It was the best choice of my young, naive, green life to leave him on that street and never look back. I don't regret Paul, or spending as much effort as I did on him because I don't regret things, but I wish I would've done it sooner. But I learned oh so much from that situation, and still am, a year later.
That was a good decision. A really good decision. Maybe it was a bad decision to involve myself with him in the first place, but it was a decision nonetheless. I learned more than I could ever say from it, and that's all I can ask. I did what Prufrock couldn't: I dared. Did I fail? Absolutely.
And indeed there will be time to wonder "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?" Time to turn back and descend the stair.
You get a major bonus point if you know why I picked this song for this post. It has to do with a lyric, but not the one you'd think. Pure 90s goodness. Oh, Gavin Rossdale.
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