Life Worth Living

I didn’t even think to write about this. Dunno why; it just never occurred to me, but I think today I need to rant about this whole difficult housing situation.

At the end of this semester I’ll have lived with Rosemary for two school years now, and while it’s not anywhere near the fabled Roommate From Hell situation it hasn’t been Eden either. Our apartment is tiny, and instead of going through the complication of deciding who would get which room (bedroom is much smaller but more private—except you have to go through it to go to the bathroom; living room has less privacy because it also connects to the closet, the kitchen, and outside) we went ahead and put both our desks in one room and our beds in the other. Which was perfectly fine, until I realised that Rosemary, while generally a great roommate, never leaves the freaking room.

I’m not kidding. The only time she ever leaves it is to go to class, when she’s out getting food with me, or on rare occasions when she has a group project to work on. She has no friends to hang out with, she doesn’t like to sit and read at cafes like I do, she even times her visits home to coincide with mine. I never have the apartment to myself. It’s gotten to the point where I rejoice when she’s in the shower for that blessed 20 minutes every other day.

It’s not necessarily that I need the place to myself, and I do like the company; it’s just stifling. Secondly, I don’t want to have to share food with her anymore. I don’t know how the situation happened where everything in the kitchen is shared, but I think it started off with us cooking together. And then she started drinking my juice, and eating my chips. I’ve largely gotten used to it, but when I eat out more than she does (because I do have friends) it means she’s eating the bulk of our shared food. Neither of these peeves are necessarily deal breakers, but all in all I think I’d rather move out.

So I was elated at the thought of living with Buttercup and Jasmine next semester, albeit a little apprehensive at the friction such close quarters may put among us. Over the past year the three of us have gotten very close, so it was a natural next step. Except that I didn’t tell Rosemary until two weeks ago. I meant to, I really did. I just wasn’t sure how to bring it up because I knew that if she gets pissy when I leave to hang out with other people a lot, how can I expect her to just smile when I say I’m moving out?

When she found out she was angry and pouty and sulky, and I admit I didn’t give her so much notice. I’m definitely not blameless in this whole episode…but when we had our horrible Serious Talk she essentially said to me, “You didn’t give me enough notice, I don’t have anyone to live with, can’t afford to get my own place, and don’t want to craigslist a stranger” which honestly sounds like it amounts to “You’re stuck with me.”

At first I felt bad for putting her in such a bad place, but it’s making me angrier thinking about it. Yes I didn’t tell her early—but what would that have accomplished? It’s not like she could’ve used the extra time to ask one of her friends to live with her—because she has none—or to magically make some good enough friends to live with. Her main problem wasn’t that she couldn’t find a place, but that she couldn’t live alone. Jasmine, Buttercup, and I haven’t found a place yet; we’d essentially be in the same boat. And I would feel bad for leaving her alone, but why is it my problem? It would be a good thing to do to not abandon, but I don’t know why I have to be stuck with her just because I was her roommate for two years. And honestly, it’s not that we don’t like her and all, but her there would really put a chink in our “The three of us”-ness. If that makes any sense. I’m also not saying that telling Rosemary to shut up and deal would be the right thing to do. It’s just that I’m feeling a growing sense of resentment toward her for basically sticking herself to me, saying “I’m sorry you don’t like it, but I’m stuck…so you’re just gonna have to take me too.”

At this point living by myself is looking like a great option. I’m not kidding. I probably won’t be able to get my own room, and I’m really starting to miss the cozy little room I had in Freshman year…being able to lounge around in my underwear, strew my clothes all around the room, blast loud music, leave unwashed dishes on the table…I’m a secret pig, and I just want to be able to roll around in the mud again.

Even though Spring Break didn’t start for me until noon on Friday, I had already checked out by Wednesday, and even as far back as last week the thought of break was enough to banish most thoughts of work from my head. On Wednesday night Leone said, “Can’t we do this one more time before break?” and “Why do you have to go back Friday?” Well, I didn’t. I’d just always headed back to SJ on the Fridays before breaks because there was no real reason to stay. But I thought about it, and on Thursday night I texted Leone asking him if he still wanted me to find out about staying one more day, and he replied, “you know I would like you to stay.” And so I called my dad.

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When he finally arrived in Berkeley today the glorious warmth of the day had already given way to the early evening and it was too cool outside to wear just my St. Patrick’s day green dress. I’ve never been the most cautious of dressers though, and so I switched my flipflops for boots and my light jacket for a coat, and scampered out the door to find Leone standing on the steps outside, hands in pockets.

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Today I am more uncertain than floaty. I am too apprehensive to rejoice. Somehow it felt like last night didn’t happen, and even when I try to conjure up memories from less than 24 hours ago the images that appear are hazy, glowy, dream-like.

After class today Leone and I don’t speak about what happened. We chat as if nothing has changed between us, and mostly I don’t have difficulty believing it. In the back of my mind though, all I can think about is the way he felt against me, and I am certain he feels it too. He is holding his bulkier motorcycle jacket and his backpack is on, and I am carrying the heaviest of my readers and three notebooks. Students are milling about us, there are three minutes until class begins, and we don’t have the time and the privacy we did last night on the apartment doorstep, when he carefully set his helmet and paper shopping bag on the ground and we melted into each other’s arms half inside the building, half out of it, the door swinging behind me. Last night, when I never wanted to let go and reveled in the feel of his hands running up and down my back. When he turned to leave and then called me back for one last kiss under the pretext of giving me my gum back. That luxury, of time and privacy and tender darkness, wasn’t to be found today under the beautiful spring sun.

We part ways with a “have fun in class” and I descend the stairs to mine mostly content. I’m not quite frightened. I’m not quite impatient. Mostly I am numb, motionless as I wait for it to settle in. I wonder what he is thinking; if he regrets it all, but I’m secure in the thought that last night wasn’t one fluke of a night. It had been so long in coming; it had been in the stars since February and on the proposal table since December. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision; he wasn’t seized by sudden emotion. It would be pointless to believe in a abrupt turn of events. He is not going to fall off the radar. This is for real.

When my cell phone buzzes with a text message as I am walking out of class, I smile and wait until I am in line for coffee before I reply. Part of me is angry at myself for still playing these little games, but despite everything having changed, nothing has changed. Before last night, we talked, texted, and chatted so much we were practically a couple. We had coffee more times than was platonic. The only things that are new are the kiss and the long zealous embraces, holding hands as we walked down the street, his arm around me waiting for the bus and on it.

He is not my boyfriend, but I can no longer call him a friend. We are drifting somewhere in Limbo, and I am eager to see him and set my feet on solid ground again.

We shiver in tandem as the skies darken around us. Outside the immediate glow of the pier the water crashes an inky black, and further into the distance the city lights twinkle into the bay. We scrunch our icy fingers into our sleeves and pull our hoods up over our heads, but neither of us make a move to leave. My left leg is pressed along his right; our hips touch and maybe our shoulders; our voices weave in and out of each other as the wind carries them away, but otherwise we are separate. Two dark figures huddled against the cold.

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When he looked at me and said, “So…do you wanna maybe get coffee or something sometime?” I had already started chanting in my head, Please don’t ask me please don’t ask me please don’t ask me.

It’s not that I don’t like him. It’s not that I don’t get along with him. I just don’t want him. I’d suspected he’d be making overtures since last Tuesday, when he’d started a conversation with me as we were walking out of class. When I scurried into class today, he had smiled bashfully, and then striked (stroke?) up another chat while we were both packing to leave. We’d sat in front of the building both our next classes were in and continued our conversation in the biting wind.

I don’t want to have coffee with him because even though it wouldn’t explicitly be a date, it would certainly feel a little like one, and I wouldn’t want to lead a guy on. If I could have coffee with him while making it clear I’m not looking for anything more than friendship I would, but I feel like if in that case I would have to say it outright. Just what could I have said but yes, anyway?

“Sorry, but I kind of have a thing with another guy. No, he’s not my boyfriend. No, I’m not even sure he will be, but I’m pretty sure. That counts for something right? I’m very smitten with him, that I can say, and he with me (knock on wood). He showed me his hometown once. I got to ride on his motorcycle—Twice! I’m having dinner with him tomorrow. Yes I know you never said this was a date, or even anything vaguely resembling one; no I don’t think I’m making something out of nothing…Hey, come back, where are you going?”

Or, “Hey sorry but I’m not all that attracted to you. Why? Well, you’re wearing pointed dress shoes and your shirt has weird embroidery on it and your hair is longer than mine and I’m not saying that’s bad! I’m just saying that that’s not what I go for in a guy. It’s not that I’m closed-minded or that I have a ‘only the best for special little me’ mentality…No, I don’t know that I wouldn’t like you if I gave it a chance. Yes, I am turning you down for a simple coffee date because I don’t like your hair, I don’t think that’s going a little too far at all.”

People get coffee together all the time, and most of the time it’s just as friends, and even when one or both sides are hoping for more it usually doesn’t happen. I should be happy a nice guy with whom I can easily talk wants to have coffee with me and not be feeling like I want to go hide in a hole somewhere.

I was at the gym, bouncing away on an elliptical and trying to catch his eye, willing him to come over and talk to me some more, trying to still look nice despite the sweat. I was frustrated that now that I was there he wasn’t paying me much attention even though he’d spent the past month being very vocally disappointed that I had (temporarily) stopped going to the gym. I was coming off a bad weekend and smack in the middle of this very bleak week I’m still living. I’d begun to fear, against any real logic, that his feelings toward me had dried up like the previous steady flow of texts had. All the insecurities, the fear that I’d harbored in the beginning of this long courtship, the fear that had never quite gone away so much as been muffled by his presence…all that was beginning to come creeping back through the chinks left by the weekend now that he had stopped contacting me out of the blue, in the middle of a school day, just to talk.

And then he walked by on his way to the court, and he wordlessly handed me his spare racquetball. And I, every time I feel melancholy and devoid of hope, every time I start to think this relationship has run its course before even stepping on the track, every time I fear that after so much and after almost finally having it, I’m going to have to start over from square one with a new guy, I think about how he gave me that little black ball to hold and I stop worrying quite so much.

My papers are due tomorrow, and while I know I’ll pull them through, the quantity of sleep I’m going to get tonight is questionable. Instead of trying to maximize that amount during my break today by reading, I sat at a cafe and wrote this:

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