#continentoftime

I skip breezily into a summer party and my buddy Marc introduces me to many new friends. I am chatting with one nice gentleman about gluten-free barbeque options, when the delicious scent of someone else’s breath wafts upon me from behind, the way a tired mother catches the first whiff of ocean spray with a hint of sun tan oil in it and realizes with a satisfied smile that she is finally on a long-deserved island vacation without her nine children. Only my ocean is flavored by truffles and suddenly, I’m surrounded and overwhelmed.

The truth of chemical attraction is dangerous. As women, I believe we are trained socially to pander to men from an early age, telling them how great and handsome and hard-working they are, even when they are fat and bald and unemployed and drinking from a beer can, without a glass, on a La-Z-Boy. Most of the time we resign that we “can’t have it all,” and try to get so close as possible. I HATE that.

But once in the bluest moon, the lie dissipates and the draw is so heavy it’s intoxicating.

Mr. Holiday turns around to face me and he’s absolutely beautiful. His eyes are the green of someone with a hot temper, yet they are gentled with experience. He has this tiny, shapely nose that I wish I were able to sculpt, and quirky lips, like Tobey McGuire in Pleasantville. His teeth have spaces in between them that seem to be granting his breath extra permission to find me.I breathe it in and pause.

I am terrified of love.

He speaks with me like we have been pals since we were kids, flirty, but not inappropriate, and for the first time in my life, I want to know every single thing about someone.

Twenty minutes later we are approached by a small, sharp-looking girl, who has the audacity to interrupt us, and who holds out her hand to greet me.

GO AWAY, I stare at her. I have found my forever. Make yourself scarce, please.

“I’m Mr. Holiday’s girlfriend,” she exclaims cheerily, putting her arm around him, as the wind is completely fucking knocked out of me.

I don’t see how this can be happening. This little woman is bossy and cold and weathered and surely evil. It can’t be. He is supposed to be mine. I am POSITIVE.

But I refuse to covet another person’s partner, so I excuse myself politely and join a different conversation. I catch him looking at me, or he catches me – it doesn’t matter, there is a continent of time between us now.

Months later, I am out with my girlfriend Leah on a wintery night, and I receive a text from Mr. Holiday’s roommate. “We are all out at Roosters, come on by!”I show Leah my phone and she is adamant that we will not be rolling up at that sketchy, hole-in-the-wall bar. I mention that Mr. Holiday is there and she yells, “I love Roosters!” She is a damn good friend.

When we arrive, I sit in the middle of a long table of acquaintances and a scotch mysteriously appears in front of me. As I am finishing it up and getting ready to leave, Mr. Holiday, sans any female company, whispers fragrantly from behind me, “That drink was from me.” I turn around to face him and respond, “You are the exact and only person I would like to be buying my drinks, thank you.” I muster up all of my faux coolness and exit.

Through the grapevine, I hear that he has reunited with his girlfriend and I am crushed again. But I can wait. I can’t imagine a victory that will taste sweeter than the inside of his mouth.

In the summertime, Mr. Holiday joins a few of us for a bottomless Sunday brunch. These are known to get rowdy. We drink until we are down to three and “three” gets up to use the bathroom. Mr. Holiday leans over, full of brash masculinity, and kisses me and I will never recover.

All of my years of truffle weirdness are exploding in a mariachi dance on my tongue.

I don’t ever want to kiss anyone else again for the rest of my life.

For months, I derive sheer inspiration from this brilliant, delightful man. He is creative and talented and hilarious. He makes me work hard and he challenges me constantly with an effortlessness that is fun.

I can see that I make him nervous and I want to quell it with the attention I think he deserves. He tells me that he and his roommate secretly think I am a superhero and I might take over the world. I am having the best time and I never want it to end.

But mostly, I love the me I am with he.

I am no longer sarcastic or bitter or angry. I am gentle and loving and kind. I am actually becoming the person I’ve always wanted to be.

Sitting on my bed one day, Mr. Holiday and I make up a story about the tiny door in my bathroom as it relates to the haunted painting on my wall and I know for certain in that instant that he will be the most amazing father.

And I totally freak out.

Something I am learning about myself while dating is that I have a strong tendency to overcorrect. Specifically, when it comes to commitment. The idea of spending a night, let alone my whole life with someone makes me nauseated. That is such a long time. People change. Some grow, most shrink.It is difficult to predict and I don’t want to be wrong.

So when I find someone with whom the connection is this strong, I will myself to commit and act my way into a new way of thinking. I don’t mention that I’m petrified and I think this can be scary.

For both of us.

I make fancy dinners and write obsessive (romantic?) poetry and envision the most desirable path to forever. I know that I eventually want eternal love and happiness, so I battle and beat the forces of coyote ugly, determined to attain the trophy that manifests as a soul mate.

It seems like my commitment to commitment is making Mr. Holiday cagey. I accuse him of this and he is not thrilled. We decide to take some space.

A week and a half later, Leah and I are at her boyfriend’s bar and Mr. Holiday shows up, on the hunt for me. I’ve already been warned by a mutual friend, so I’ve decided to finish my martini and take off before he can catch me, but I am too late.

He is drunk and he corners me and he tells me nothing that I want to hear and tries to kiss me. I leave without saying goodbye. I do not want to experience this rollercoaster blackmail of emotions. It is totally unfair. I gave him an out and he took it.

But I cannot resist him.

I agree to meet him for coffee a few days later and I am hooked back in. I can’t look at him without wanting to kiss. I can’t not kiss him. I can’t stop kissing him. It hurts my insides. I am trapped in some vortex of physical pain.

This isn’t healthy.

We spend Halloween together and it’s the worst. We break up. We get back together. We spend Thanksgiving together and it’s the greatest. We break up.We get back together. We break up again. Then he calls me and says he knows I am in town for Christmas and asks me if I’ll spend it with him. Of course I will. Christmas Eve is amazing. Christmas day begins with mimosas.

For some reason, I am under the impression that he can’t bear the thought of spending the holidays without me, but later in the day my belief transitions into one where he has invited me out of pity and I can’t seem to shake it. So I decide to drink those thoughts away and somehow I find myself in a very big, very surprise argument.

The party is over and we are alone in his house and highly intoxicated when he starts to joke about why anyone would leave Los Angeles in December. I completely agree with him. It’s amazing here. All I wanted for Christmas was to spend it with him and we’ve done that and I couldn’t be happier.

We laugh about how weird it is that his parents went to Paris with his brothers, my family is without me in Istanbul, his ex-girlfriend is in Puerto Vallarta with her boyfriend…

“WAIT, my ex-girlfriend…

… HAS A BOYFRIEND?”

The daggers are out. I try to retract my statement claws, but it’s too late. He didn’t react to the common, “funny,” Mexico portion of the story.

His ex has had that boyfriend since the week that they broke up. How could he possibly not know that? He follows her on twitter and she talks about it constantly. We have all the same friends. He is close with her brother. I cannot believe that this is falling on me. I am too drunk to mitigate the damage. I burst into never-ending tears of sudden, unforgivable awareness.

In my head we are enveloped in divine, chaotic love and in his, I am merely a placeholder for her.