DUMPED IN DENVER

It's the 15th, Denver.
Can I help you yank this down?

There’s never a good time to be dumped but, I’d have to say, some times are worse.

 

Christmas. (Eve or Day.)

 

New Year’s. (Same as above.)

 

Valentine’s Day.

 

Guess which one I just experienced.

 

He didn’t!

 

Oh, yes. He did. 

 

I’m on record as saying I don’t like Valentine’s Day. Gotta say, I like it even less now. 

 

The day before had been rocky. One of the tough parts of long-distance relationships is that communication while apart is always somehow lacking. Texts can be misread, the tone unclear. Calls are better but there are distractions. FaceTime is my preference, but it’s always clear you’re still apart. 

 

Something had been off in the morning phone call, a laugh meant to convey lightness and support misinterpreted as uncaring and a suggestion dismissed with irritation. He was stressed, I told myself. He had reason to be. 

 

When I FaceTimed in the evening, he didn’t answer. He quickly message instead: 

Can’t talk now, sorry

 

A little later, a flurry of texts, an unexpected attack. He needed to focus on himself. And, incidentally, I was deficient…in many ways. 

 

It felt so wrong. An assault on my character. Little things were suddenly everything. I know I’d disappointed him a few weeks ago and, what I’d thought had been resolved was now the equivalent to that pesky spinning rainbow on a computer screen. It would not go away.

 

A FaceTime followed. More character assassination. He depicted my view of our relationship as narrow, self-serving and a total letdown. Where was this coming from? It was exacerbating. Slanted. Absurd! I hung up. 

 

A few more texts came, more of the same. I let them go. What was the point of arguing—even defending—when the point of view had gone so dark?

 

Feeling shaken and wounded, I immediately faced more confusion. I was supposed to fly to Denver the next day for a two-week stay, my first visit at his new place, a chance to help him settle in and for us to feel out our new U.S. base. Was I still welcome? 

 

I didn’t pack. I managed a couple of hours sleep but mostly the night passed slowly as a pillow fight, solitaire edition. When the alarm sounded, I felt both relief and dread. No more agonizing tossing and turning but now I had to face the day. Where were we? Were we even “we”?

 

I texted:

You’re my partner. I would like to come today—to

see you, to be with you.

 

Is that okay?

 

And immediate response:

Yes. Happy Valentine’s.

 

Okay then. What had been the significance of yesterday? Anything? Nothing? 

 

There had been times when our evening chats had involved misunderstandings but, in each instance when Evan had been harsh or moody, he’d texted an apology immediately the next morning. His ability to say sorry, quickly and genuinely, had always been one of the things I most admired about him. 

 

No sorry this time. I packed. Was “Happy Valentine’s” supposed to make everything better? I spent the day traveling, still confused and wounded. I knew we’d have a difficult conversation. I knew we’d get through it. 

 

I took the train from the airport to Union Station where he picked me up. It was a fifteen-minute drive to his place. We broke up before we arrived. 

 

What was going on? Why did he keep casting me in a negative, dismissive light? I could have rebutted everything and defended my character. I made a few points, but, as startling as it was, I knew nothing I said mattered. 

 

He’d made his case and said it. He’d dumped me. He’d freed himself from the apparent awfulness of me. 

 

He mumbled a couple of times, “This is a great Valentine’s Day.” I will begrudge him this. As the dumper, he needed to keep his mouth shut about that. His choice. I was the dumpee. That was my line. True, not a great VD for him either, but I’m the one who didn’t want this. I’m the one who spent the day traveling for a greeting that plays back as “Hello, I’m dumping you” on the highlight reel.

 

As the drive continued he gave me a tour guide’s narration of things along the route. It felt so tone deaf. Random buildings didn’t matter when I didn’t matter. I stared at the glove compartment, trying to will my mind to go numb, waiting for him to change course, to glance at me, to see me for me again, to see the man he fell in love with, the guy he spent the past two weeks repeatedly saying how much he missed. Nope. The tour dragged on, even as we walked the block to his place after parking.

 

I went through the motions looking at his place. I tried to offer a positive comment or two. My heart wasn’t in it. His heart wasn’t mine anymore.

 

Two weeks here? He floated the friends concept. We’d be better as that. 

 

I sat and focused on my phone screen. How much to fly out the next day? How much for a hotel? The costs were high, but I saw no other options. I did not want to be where I was not wanted. I could not flip a switch and become friends with someone who’d just portrayed me as too much, not enough and wholly unappealing.

 

I should have Ubered it to the hotel. Instead, I asked for a lift. I suppose he owed me that. We drove mostly in silence. We got lost. I was relieved to have the GPS voice fill the space between us. 

 

Still stunned, I kept thinking he’d recant. He’d remember how we gel instead of perseverating on how we’re different. He’d come to his senses. 

 

He didn’t. 

 

Hello, nondescript hotel room. It was eight o’clock at night, eleven hours after I’d left my home, a single scone to sustain me for the day. I needed food but I knew you don’t ask for a table for one on Valentine’s Day. Couples don’t want a sad single dude, freshly dumped no less, in their periphery as they thank god they no longer have to eat Lean Cuisine on February 14^th. 

 

As with many downtowns, Denver doesn’t have a big offering of grocery stores. I walked half an hour to Whole Foods, passing many restaurants loaded with couples. Not fun. The streets were quiet as I slogged back to the hotel with my banana and guac, passing the occasional love birds spilling out of a diner, clutching bouquets and boxes of flowers. Still not fun.

 

Before turning in, I checked my phone yet again. No calls, no messages, no regrets. 

 

In the middle of the night, it became crystal clear, his resolve would not relent. Our relationship ended three weeks short of two years. Rest in peace, or something like that. He has a clean break in a new home, free of any memories of me or of us. I get to return to a home where the presence of Evan is everywhere, reminders I can’t pack away in a closet. (Maybe I’ll buy a tarp and turn the balcony to an indefinite storage space.) 

 

He’d frontloaded all his thinking about ending us. He’d had time to think about us shifting to friendship. Maybe even plenty of time. Had it only been a few weeks? Had he flirted with thoughts of freedom at Christmas? Did doubts set in last summer? He’d often gotten caught up in our differences and, to be sure, some of them are pronounced. I’d repeatedly said, You be you. I meant it. I don’t think he ever got his head around that when it came to me. 

 

He’d held off and didn’t say it until he was ready. Why then would he recant? He’d said it. He’d freed himself. Hello, relief! 

 

A little reminder, courtesy the
City of Denver.

I checked my phone first thing in the morning. I still hoped he’d express regret. A big mistake that’s all. Stress and sickness had made him turn against me, the easiest target for doubts, frustration and distraction from other big changes in his life. Alas, the only thing on my screen was a notification from Duolingo, suggesting it was time to practice Swedish. 

 

Plenty of time, as it turns out.

 

 

  

HEARTLESS

To be clear, it’s not just Valentine’s Day. I’m not a fan of many holidays. Even if some come with a day off. Conceptually, I am appalled that we require a particular day to honor our mothers, our fathers and the one we love (if we happen to be so lucky). I’m not big on birthdays either. I suppose it’s all couched in years of feeling unworthy, but I believe we should celebrate people in our lives each time the moment feels right rather than out of obligation. I should also think we are reflective beings who can stumble across epiphanies (or be reminded through healthy conversation), awakening us in periods when we have overlooked our expressions of love and appreciation. The just-because celebrations are more meaningful than days sponsored by Hallmark and Lindt chocolates.

But to be even clearer, Valentine’s Day is my least favorite of the forced fêtes. I am a color-connected guy so maybe my discomfort dates back to primary school with rooms draped in red paper chains of hearts and Cupids. As a redhead, I was told that the color didn’t suit me in terms of clothing. Never wear red was a mantra instilled in me as strongly as Don’t talk to strangers. (Yes, I had a few nightmares about lap visits with mall Santas, but I’ll quickly repress those once more.) While my classmates arrived at school in red tees, I stuck to brown. It was the go-to color of the early seventies, very practical for absorbing the constant grass and mustard stains of a clumsy boy.

Valentine’s Day went on steroids when I moved to East Texas in tenth grade. Everything is bigger in the Lone Star State. Various school clubs raked in their annual operating budgets by conducting competing Valentine’s Day fund raisers. Heart-o-grams. Roses (red for sweethearts, yellow for BFFs). Balloon bouquets. Chocolates. What a boon! If you’d swapped class rings and letter jackets with your Forever Love, then you had to splurge and bestow upon him/her the works: a heart-o-gram, roses, balloons AND chocolates. Deliveries came all day during breaks between classes…and during classes. It was an agonizing spectacle for have-nots like me. The day belonged to Team Taken. Arms filled with these tokens of love, textbooks remained in lockers, keeping pompoms and batons company. (Yes, that first year in high school, my assigned locker-mate was a majorette.) It was up to the sad sacks like me to share our textbooks if any teacher had the gall to plan anything other than showing a movie on this day of love learning.

In university, one of the clubs I joined appeared to combine therapy with fund raising, deciding to sell dead flowers for Valentine’s. Alas, this was still Texas and we failed to make a single sale. I took home a dozen dead flowers, perhaps as a reminder that sometimes misery does not love company. (This fund raising flop also confirmed I’d made the right decision in not becoming a Business major.)

The first time Valentine’s Day had real meaning I was 26 and deeply consumed by first love. This was it! Soulmate! Yes, Forever Love! That night, we sat together on his sofa and exchanged gifts. I’d scribbled a half dozen versions of my message of love on notepads before finally professing my love and adoration in the loveliest offering Carlton Cards had to offer. I have no idea what I got him. Presumably, it was some combination of grocery aisle Valentine’s convenience and a stylish clothing item to compensate for his fashion challenges. I held my first ever wrapped Valentine’s gift in my hands, my name on the card which he simply signed. (Why compete with the terms of endearment from the Hallmark pros?) My eyes watered. All these years of slamming the holiday and suddenly the day and this gift meant everything! I unwrapped a framed picture of just John, smiling away in a checkered red and white hoedown dress while wearing a Carmen Miranda fruit platter wig on his head. He giggled with glee and I was relieved my eyes were already wet.

What the hell did this picture have to do with romance?

Forever Love ended a month later. What’s most embarrassing is that I wasn't the one who called it off.

For the most part, I have managed to duck and cover on subsequent Valentine’s Days. It’s a mere pit stop between the far worthier Groundhog Day and St. Patrick’s Day. Still, I can never wholly forget the occasion, being as I work in an elementary school. It’s still a time of equality and excitement when children must give a card to everyone in the class and the day’s primary objective is to ingest as much sugar as possible without throwing up. (I didn’t have to use the mop bucket even once yesterday!) I was caught off guard the day before, when a boy held the door open for me and asked, “Are you excited about Valentine’s Day?” I repressed a reflex snort and convincingly answered, “So excited! Candy and chocolates! What could be better?” And just like that, I’d obliterated a year’s worth of healthy eating education. Damn VD!

The day will be over soon enough. I’ve got lots of sorting and discarding to do as I prepare for my upcoming move. Tomorrow will be a new day, a regular one where my single status won’t be any more pronounced than I usually make it. Perhaps I’ll buy my own chocolate bar even though I really don’t care for the confection. Even better, the drugstore will surely have those yummy Red Hot hearts on sale for 25% off.

Be Mine? Ack! Be gone.

  

IN THE SHADOWS

Today should be a big day.  Huge!  Aside from a few farmers and a couple of wrong-footed cows, who doesn’t love a groundhog?  Cute little dudes, otters of the land. Unfortunately, Groundhog Day creeps up on us and comes and goes with little fanfare.  No greeting cards, no costumes, no parties, no cake.  Tragic, really.  I am sure whoever first dreamed up the occasion had a grander vision.  Somehow everything went amiss.  The lowly groundhog isn’t even as popular as the penguin...and there isn’t even a Penguin Day.  If a groundhog surfaces today and appears a little disgruntled, surely we are to blame.

Had Groundhog Day made it on the August calendar, I am certain it would be a Big Deal.  Parades, groundhog-shaped chocolates to outsell hedgehogs and, yes, cake.  August really needs a Groundhog Day.  Forget the winter schminter gimmick.  Let’s let the little critter forecast an endless summer, delaying the red leaves of autumn.  And consider the legacy of the movie “Groundhog Day”.  Who wants to experience a day in February on repeat mode?  August 2, over and over, has a much greater appeal.

Alas, Groundhog Day got relegated to the second day of the second month of the year and, like the animal, the day lives forever in the shadows of a bigger beast:  Valentine’s Day.  Driving my dog to the vet this morning, I had to exercise my fine motor skills, ping-ponging back and forth from radio station to radio station to tune out an ad about a Radio Valentine campaign, a florist’s dollar-eyed pitch to remember your loved one and a disc jockey’s community announcement about a Love Ball at the dreary town hall.

Sadly for groundhogs and non-hunky bachelors like me, love is all around.  While the official love-fest is over and done midmonth, the love hangover stretches right through the month.  It’s the shortest month of the year,...why bother with any more hoopla?  The Haves can stretch things out with cake and, maybe even better, chocolates. 

If only the Irish and Hallmark got together to kick the Saint Paddie plans into higher gear.  Who doesn’t love a leprechaun?  And gold!

HEART IN FACE

Oh, here it comes again. Valentine’s Day. My local drugstore had the displays up on New Year’s Day, but the holiday is officially in my face when my Starbucks cup has a big red heart on it. Somehow the brew seemed bitterer as I drank it. (Seriously?! Bitterer is a word? My Microsoft grammar check prefers it to more bitter. Alrighty then.)

Yes, I am not in love with Valentine’s Day. No surprise since I am not in love at all. I don’t need a day to separate me from the haves. I can feel it every day If I want to. True, this day is not about me at all. The have nots simply need to find other things to pass the day. Sudoku. Oven cleaning. Old episodes of our hero, “Mary Tyler Moore”. (She still rocks those bell bottoms.) If you’re in love, lucky you. You don’t really need a day to tell your partner how you feel, but throw in your support for Hallmark, Hershey’s and other providers. No doubt about it, I would too.

My disdain for the day came relatively late in life. Back in elementary school, I had teachers who admonished students and parents that all children in the class had to receive cards or Be Mine heart candies. Or both. My teachers taught me that Valentine’s Day is for everyone. Liars. They also colluded with my parents in feeding me lovely ideas about Santa, the Easter Bunny and that creepy bedroom imposter, the Tooth Fairy.

In high school, I learned the truth. V-Day is for the select few. In Texas, the girls who already flashed their boyfriend’s class ring and wore his letter jacket received roses, mums or balloons. Public displays of affection became more obvious as the couples took over the courtyard benches for hand holding, hugging and kissing. It was just as well that I was sexually confused back then. I didn’t stand a shot at enticing either gender with my overly enthusiastic case of acne and my white boy afro. I had a pick that I kept in my back pocket to poof it up several times a day—big on big hair. (Maybe I was harkening my inner Janis Ian as I wallowed in the words of “At Seventeen”.)

Even when I fell in love for the first time, Valentine’s proved to be a disappointment. Before going for dinner, John handed me a wrapped gift, eager for me to open it. I tried to follow mature unwrapping etiquette, tugging at the taped folds instead of savagely ripping the wrapping to examine my first ever V-D present. John beamed with anticipation. Look at him, I thought. He truly loves me. At last, Etta, at last.

I pulled back a corner of the wrapping to reveal the back of a picture frame. Yes! I’d finally reached Have status. A photo of us I could proudly display in my apartment! Uh, no. As I flipped the frame over, it was just John in the pic. In drag. From a time before we were together. Hmm. He laughed with glee. What a drag indeed.

I have only a week to wait out the holiday. There will be no online messaging, no coffee dates during the awkward interval. You don’t start something right before Valentine’s. Truth be told, holding off is not a sacrifice. It’s just part of my V-D whine.

I’ll get through it. Always do. Janis Ian, Jann Arden and Adele can keep me company. And tomorrow I’ll be ready. I’ll remember to bring my plastic mug to Starbucks and pass on the paper cup with the heart. It’s better for the environment. And my psyche.