Conversations

As much as I try to let go of the past I can't help but rehash conversations from time to time. It's partly the writer in me that clings to every inflection and word. The exchanged words are so important to me. And now that it's over they are all set in stone. All I can do is go back and re watch the same scenes over and over and hope that maybe this time I'll see something I never saw before.

The man that broke my heart owned a bar and while we were together he almost lost his bar. I remember the exact moment when I began to question whether or not he was serious about starting a relationship with me. I realized when the threat of losing his bar was upon him how inextricably linked he was to the business. It wasn't just the work that he did, it was who he was. He had staffed the place with his friends, and created something of a sanctuary. The bar was this perfect orb of fragility. It was the fact that it could so easily be broken or sold or taken away that made it so special.

This man, I'll call him Bill, was not so much a man, but an ocean liner carrying too much and with too few life boats. His friends and what he considered his family were all at the mercy of this bar. The people in his life were doomed to either ride him to the end or be thrown overboard, and the risk seemed worth it for the luxury of him. When Bill came into your life he promised to make it exciting, he promised to make you a star in his constellation. I beheld him like something elegant and massive coming into my life, and yet there was fragility to him--like all seafaring objects. At any moment, if he went down, he would take so many with him. Was it kindness or selfishness that kept him afloat? It was impossible to see from the observation deck of love, I could see everything behind, and some of what was ahead but I couldn't see where I presently was. Love was a great fog, with all the fabulous details filled in by our imaginations. 


The conversation we were having was when he finally broke down and admitted he was horrified to lose everything, his relationship, his bar, his stability. I seemed to be the metaphor for all this change in his life. What it sounded like he was saying was our relationship could not work if the bar didn't succeed. It was in these moments of weakness, when Bill broke down and expressed his honest fears and anxiety, that I saw the perilousness of my own situation. I was now at the mercy of his buoyancy. I was now one of the people riding this liner and if he went down in some way he would take me with him. When he expressed this fear over losing his business all I could say was:


"But you are not what you do," desperately trying to keep him afloat. It was now a matter of my own self preservation that kept me supporting him. Just like he felt a strong unwavering bond to the bar, I felt it too. I came alive in that bar. I became the person I was then and there. And I wasn't going to lose the bar or the relationship.


When we met he insisted on getting me to dance to Madonna, which ended with the two of us dancing on top of the bar. Then, just like a blur of light, a blur of life, Ray of Light came on, we took a shot of Jameson and I vogued even though it wasn't Vogue. Dancing on top of the bar I felt a burst of energy; in the service industry it's called a second wind. I felt like I was coming back to life, in a Molotov cocktail of whiskey and passion. In this moment I knew that I was in love, not just with a man but a moment and a feeling and a life. I was falling back in love with my life. Nothing ever felt better. Bill grabbed me with one arm and flailed with the other, I let the drunk wash over me like a baptism. I was born again at a bar, a disciple of effervescent energy and blaring music.


Now I walk by the street before it comes to life, that corner of State street that looks like a ghost town by daylight. I can still remember that feeling. I can move on and move past it but I can never forget that the energy I felt when I had a place that I felt I belonged. When things ended between us I didn't just lose the man, I lost the bar. I had been forced to walk a plank away from everything that I loved, including those brief moments that I loved myself.


What I realize now is that it was artificial alcohol-induced confidence that I had been feeling. I wasn't alive in those moments, I was a barfly thriving off of the energy of others.