Things by Season
Seasoned
By: Kristi K.
For privacy purposes, I have changed the names of everyone in this story aside from my own.
All
dialogue has been reproduced to the best of my memory.
“How many things by
season season'd are, To their right praise and true perfection!”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
How do you measure the influence one
person has on your life? Do you measure
it in academic achievement and chalk it up to being blessed with good
teachers? Is it in all of the good
choices you made when faced with complicated moral decisions? (A direct result of good parenting.) Or maybe it’s measured in love, like that
song from Rent. Quite often, we are so caught off guard by
those that influence us the most that we don’t even realize they’re doing
it. It happens so quickly, like the
first day after summer when you realize as you’re walking out the door, in your
shorts and flip-flops, that it’s sixty degrees outside, but you’re running
late, so you have to freeze it out. The
cold breeze hurts, at first, beating against your bare knees and shriveling the
skin on your toes, but then you adjust, like with anything else and for a while
you’re okay until your next chance to put on something warmer.
The influence one human soul can
have upon another is one of the most remarkable and inexplicable ventures
anyone can experience in life. Sometimes
it happens for no other reason than coincidence, or maybe fate. While I’m unsure if I believe in fate, I do
believe that certain events in our lives happen to teach us an important lesson
or to challenge us in ways we never imagined possible. In saying that, I stand to prove that one
person can affect your life like the seasons change, and it can be just as beautiful if you let it.
Fall:
“Autumn is as joyful and sweet as an
untimely end.” – Remy de Gourmont
“I
forgot to bring sneakers,” I said to Brian, sitting on the edge of his
lop-sided twin mattress. The wooden
frame was old and tired, no longer concerned with hiding its gashes and
bruises, the result of years of abuse by the two boys who occupied this room.
“Are
you serious? But you knew we were going to the reservation. I even reminded you!” he laughed.
“I
know, but it’s okay. I’ll just hike in my flip-flops. No big deal.”
I
had been talking about this trip to the Ramapo Reservation for months. I wanted nothing more than to take a ride
back to Ramapo College
“You
can’t hike in flip-flops!” I heard a voice yell from the hallway. It was Brian’s Mom; I should have expected
nothing less than her two cents. “I have
sneakers you can borrow, what size are you?”
“Usually
a nine,” I politely replied, cringing at the idea of wearing another woman’s
sweaty, smelly gym sneakers.
“Here,
try these on. They’re an eight and a
half, but they’ve been stretched out a little.” Gross, I thought.
I
slowly untied the laces of the left shoe, and begrudgingly slipped my foot in,
trying not to think about it. They fit. Great.
“Perfect!”
said the proud owner of the smelly shoes.
Halfway up the mountain, Brian turned to me and said, “Are
you sure we’re going the right way?”
“I haven’t been here in years, Bri, I’m not 100% sure, but
I think so.”
We were looking for a specific trail that led to a rocky
clearing at the top of the mountain where we’d see the entire landscape of Ramapo College
and probably the rest of Bergen
County
“I’m 100% sure now, Bri,” I smirked, looking at him and
then toward the clearing.
I walked quickly, leaving Brian behind, eager to see the
vastness of all of the treetops along the horizon. I walked close to the edge of the rocks and
sat, removing my camera from its case to snap some pictures.
Moments later, Brian sat next to me, watching me take
pictures of the Ramapo College Campus, turkey vultures, trees and
mountains. He didn’t say anything, just
sat there. It felt weird.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
I’m not even sure why I asked this question, but it just seemed like the
right thing to say at the time.
“Yeah, why?” he asked, looking at me with wide eyes, like
I read his mind or something.
“I don’t know, you just got really quiet all of a sudden,”
I laughed.
“Oh, sorry,” he laughed awkwardly. What is
up with him? I thought.
Obviously he didn’t want to tell me whatever it was, so I
shrugged it off and turned around to take more pictures. Minutes must have gone by, I’m not entirely
sure, but when I turned around, there he was on one knee, a small black box in
his hand.
Winter:
“The pine stays green in
winter…wisdom in hardship.” – Norman Douglas
I
stood in the aisle at Kohl’s facing the grown man in front of me, rocking back
and forth like a child. I was mortified.
“Brian.
Is this a joke? Stop it!” I demanded.
He
ignored me, continuing to rock back and forth, his knuckle clenched between his
teeth turning white and red all at the same time. This was the worst panic attack I’d seen yet.
“What
is wrong with you?” I asked,
unbearably embarrassed.
“I
can’t do this! I have to go. You have to do this by yourself,” he spat out.
“Do
what? Register for dishes? Are you kidding me?”
I honestly couldn’t believe this was actually happening.
“Yes. I can’t do it. I don’t know which ones are the right ones to
pick. If it’s wrong, I’ll hear it from
her…”
I
knew who her was. It was always her. His mother.
“Do
you hear what you’re saying? Do you really think I give a shit whether or not
your mother likes the fucking plates
we pick out for OUR HOUSE? You’ve got to
be kidding me.”
“You
have no idea, Kristi. You don’t know what she’s like. After we went to Bed, Bath
“You
what?” I asked. At that point I had had
enough. “So what you’re saying is that you’re just going to let her control you
for the rest of your life, and that’s it? And I’m going to have to allow her to do the
same to me by default? You’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m going
to allow her to change my bridal
registry because she doesn’t like
it. Are you ever going to stand up to
her, ever?”
“Let’s
just go,” he replied, and we did.
“Hey,
did you get a friend request from Matt Andrews on Facebook?” Annie asked me.
I hadn’t heard that name since the last time
we were all together in middle school.
Annie and I had kept in touch; Matt left us to go to private school on a
scholarship. I’d heard all sorts of
rumors about him that probably weren’t true, that he was a millionaire and
living in California
“No!
What the hell? I’ll request him. Maybe
he really is a millionaire and too good to be friends with me,” I laughed.
It had been thirteen years since the last time I saw Matt
Andrews, when I was thirteen years old, and quite frankly, I hadn’t thought of
him much since then. I knew him well
enough then to know that I didn’t want to keep in touch; I was glad to escape
the middle school torture he so willingly put me through. In our eighth grade yearbook he wrote to me,
“Make sure you take care of Bib! Haha.”
Bib was a rubber squeaky cow that I found one day staring me in the face
as I opened my locker. I still have yet
to figure out how he broke into it. It’s
safe to say, I loathed Matt Andrews.
Well, the old Matt Andrews. That
night, I sent a friend request that would alter my entire universe.
Between the hours of 11:30pm and 4:30am we talked, or
should I say typed, feverishly. The
words flowed so quickly from both of our fingertips that we found ourselves
having multiple conversations at once, answering each others probing questions
in succession and somehow still making sense of the whole exchange. I wanted to know everything about the last
thirteen years of his life: comparing high school and college experiences, how
his family was, where he was living, what he’d been doing since graduation
(which I found out he never went to; he was working). Before I knew it, what had started out as
polite banter turned into something completely unexpected: discussions about
space and the universe, philosophical ideas and scientific facts, contemplations
of the meaning of life and roles in society, personal goals and
aspirations. Midway through this
conversation, I found myself lacking.
I was a college graduate with five years of substituting
experience working part-time at the high school that Matt abandoned, pressured
to be married within the next year because my fiancé felt that he needed to
accomplish something before he turned
thirty (those were his exact words). And
Matt? I’m not even sure I want to
divulge this information, in comparison.
Matt had five degrees: computer engineering, computer science,
neuroscience, economics and something else that I can’t remember at the moment. He spent a few years travelling the world for
different companies and told me stories about his travels to England, Ireland,
Poland, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Jerusalem,
Iraq, Japan, Russia, California, Argentina and The Virgin Islands (to name a
few). When he was tired of travelling,
he quit the company he was working for and with the money he had saved, started
his own business leaving him happily back at home working out of his parent’s
basement.
I have always loved to travel, and hearing all of this
from Matt made me almost immediately jealous; I couldn’t control it, and I
began to complain. I told him about all
of the issues I was having with my fiancé and his mother and all of the
conflicting opinions that I am sure are customary when planning a wedding. I told him about the meltdowns (on Brian’s
part) and that I wasn’t sure how we were going to afford to get married and
move in together. I complained about the
job market in the education field and how much it sucked. And he listened; he listened to all of
it. When I finally took a breath, he
stopped me and said, “Kristi. Do you
hear yourself?” I wasn’t sure what he
meant by that exactly.
“Answer one question for me,” he continued, “Are you
happy?”
“I think so,” is all I could come up with.
He laughed, “That doesn’t sound very reassuring. Kristi, what are you doing? I’ll tell you
what I got out of this conversation. You
feel like you’re stuck. You can’t find a
job, you’ve been in a relationship with the same person since you were
eighteen, and you’re getting married because that just seems like it should be
the next step, regardless of whether or not you’re actually ready for it. You’ve given up. You’ve become complacent. You could be doing so much more, Kristi. The only difference between me and you is
that we went to different schools.
You’re capable of just as much success as I’ve had; actually, I think
you could actually surpass me because I truly believe you’re actually smarter
than me. You spent the last five years
of your life just going through the motions, settling for a crappy part-time
job, for what? You could have a doctorate by now, or at least your master’s,
and you could be teaching college level courses. You realize that, right? You’re preventing yourself from living to
your full potential and it depresses me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
He was right. He was right about
all of it. What was I doing with my
life? In my mind, there were all sorts
of dreams and aspirations, tangible ones.
What was stopping me from doing all of those things? Complacency?
Fear? I was four years shy of
thirty and what did I have to show for it? A fancy piece of paper with my name
on it, hanging lifelessly on the wall in our upstairs hallway. Seriously, what the fuck was I doing with my
life?
“Maybe
we should just cancel the wedding. I’m
not sure I can take this anymore.”
“What
do you mean?”
“It’s
too stressful. I just don’t think I can do it. It’s really not worth all the
bullshit and animosity and stress and I just think we should call the whole
fucking thing off and forget about it. It’s only February, maybe we could get
some of our money back.”
“And
then what? Just not get married?”
“Yeah.”
“But
you’d still want to stay together?”
“Yeah,
but just pretend the whole wedding thing never happened. Maybe try again in a couple years or
something.”
I
couldn’t believe that he was telling me that he wanted to cancel the wedding.
I had thought about it for weeks, trying to come up with some way to say
it that would make sense. I couldn’t
tell him that I was in love with someone else.
I would never do that to him. I
also knew that he wasn’t serious about cancelling the wedding, like I was; he
was just stressed and anxious. I had no
idea where I was going to get all of the courage I knew it would take to break
his heart.
“I
think I might actually be in love with you,” Matt said.
“What…?” I replied.
I wanted to think that I misheard him, but I knew I hadn’t.
“I’m sorry, Kristi, that was stupid. Forget I said it. What the fuck am I thinking? You’re engaged for Christ’s sake!”
“It’s not stupid, Matt.”
“No, yes. Yes it is. It’s really fucking stupid.”
“I love you too,” I blurted out. What am I doing? I thought.
“Yeah, but you…what?” he said.
“It’s true. It
doesn’t make any sense, but it’s
true. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever felt for anyone else what I’m feeling
right now.”
“No, you don’t. That’s bad. This is wrong. Forget I said anything,” trying
to take back words that would be forever burned into my head and heart; some
words cannot be unsaid.
“You can’t take something like that back, Matt. You said it, I think because you really meant
it. But, now what?” I already knew then, that I was going to do
the unthinkable.
“I don’t know,” said Matt.
We
fought all night and all morning. I
couldn’t take it anymore. That’s all we did, and I hated it. It was March, the winter had been long and
cold, and I was torn, seemingly into pieces.
I had inadvertently fallen in love with someone I hadn’t seen in
thirteen years, somehow certain that there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that
what I was about to do was the right thing.
I couldn’t talk to anyone else about it; what would I say? “I’m
abandoning my almost eight year relationship with Brian, for the kid who used
to torture me in middle school. Yes, I
do realize that we will be out $10,000 and that I will disappoint all of my
family, friends, co-workers, etc.” I
knew that if I made this choice, I was making it alone.
“We
need to talk in person,” I said, “I refuse to fight with you through text
messages. I’m driving up. See you in forty minutes.” I grabbed my phone, my purse and the small
black box.
“I
couldn’t do it,” I said to Matt, on the phone.
“Maybe I just need to try it out and see if I can make it work. It’s not fair. I can’t do that to him. I’ve never seen someone so upset in my entire
life. It killed me to know that I was
causing that.”
“You
have to do whatever is right for you,” he replied, monotonously.
“I’m
so sorry, Matt. I don’t know what to
do. Maybe I’m just meant to live that
life. Maybe it’s worth my unhappiness to
make someone else’s life a little less fucked up.”
“Kristi. Listen very carefully. That’s the most asinine thing I have ever
heard come out of your mouth, and I know you’re intelligent. You can’t live your life to make someone else
happy. What’s the point of living if
you’re miserable? I don’t know what you want to do with your life, but whatever
choice you make is just that, your choice.
It’s not anyone else’s, not Brian’s, not mine, not your parent’s, yours.
Don’t ever do anything that you don’t want to do, and that includes
ending an engagement for me. If you
decide to do it, do it only for yourself.
Remember the first night we stayed up until 5am talking? I asked you if
you were happy and you couldn’t answer me.
You are the only one who knows whether or not you’re truly happy. I just hope that whatever you choose, it’s
what’s best for you. Just like I have to do what’s bet for
me. I can’t keep doing this,
Kristi. This whole situation is so fucked
up. It seems like you want to just get
married because you feel like you have to and you just want to be able to see
me whenever it’s convenient for you and not tell anyone. You can’t do that, and I won’t do that. You couldn’t end it, that’s fine. That’s your choice and my choice is to end
this nonsense. So, just please forget
any of this ever happened. You’re just
going to have to erase me completely, and I, you. That’s it.
So please don’t text me, because I won’t respond.”
“Matt,
no. You can’t just erase me from your
life and I could never do that either.
Please, stop.”
“I
have to. And you really have no say in
it, because it’s my choice to completely cut off communication. I can’t continue to love you, Kristi. That’s
not fair to me. The only way I can
forget you is to erase you. It’ll take a
while, but eventually the mind forgets.
That’s just how it has to be.”
I
started to panic. This couldn’t really
be happening. I didn’t know what to do
and the only person I felt I could confide in just stated his case that he
planned to abandon me. This is how Brian is going to feel, I thought. My world was collapsing and I could almost
feel the pieces crumbling at my feet.
Pretty soon the floor would cave in and I’d be lost, like Alice
I
became introverted. I was moody for
seemingly no reason, quiet in a crowd and just overall miserable. I sent Matt paragraph-long text messages all
day every day, desperately explaining that I couldn’t handle his decision,
pleading with the silence to reconsider.
I got no response, as promised. I
knew then that I had never before experienced torture. I feared that I might actually go
insane. This all-consuming obsession
with getting a response, anything to
just know that he was even at least reading what I was saying, was taking over
my life. It was unhealthy, but I felt
like I needed it more than I needed air.
He was the only other person who understood. This is what it felt like to be truly alone.
But
then it came.
“Kristi.
You need to stop this.”
Six words
and I knew everything would be okay.
I was confused. It
took three hours. Three hours of
recalling the last eight years. Three
hours of tears, laughter, and story-telling.
Three hours to end it all, and I didn’t cry. Had I really become that cold-hearted? I cry
every time I watch “The Land Before Time” and whenever I accidentally see the
end of an episode of “Extreme Home Makeover,” but that afternoon I didn’t shed
a tear. I stood my ground and as I
watched his black car drive away, I thought of the small black box now sitting
next to him in the passenger seat where I used to sit, but never would
again. In the dead of winter, we, too,
died.
Spring:
“The beautiful
spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to
revive also.” - Harriet Ann Jacobs
The next three months were the worst of my life and it
started with a phone call from Brian.
“Kristi, I can’t do this.
Please, I’m begging you. We can fix this. I can’t live with myself like this! I can’t live without you!”
I was waiting for this conversation. I knew that Brian’s previous mental
breakdowns were going to be cake compared to the aftermath of a break-up like
this, which was almost entirely the reason why I came so close to not going
through with it. I couldn’t handle the
responsibility if something disastrous happened.
“Brian. Listen to me, okay? I know how much this hurts and
I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I have to put you through this. I really might never forgive myself for doing
this to you, but I won’t change my mind.
There’s nothing to fix. I just
know that I won’t be able to live with myself if I go through with this wedding
and I know you will probably never understand that. You’ll hate me for a long time, and I will
have to live with that. But you can live
without me, and you will. I promise it will get easier.”
“No. NO! I won’t
let this happen, Kristi. I won’t. FUCK! I really think I might just kill
myself. I have nothing to live for. My entire life was just ripped out from under
me and I literally have nothing left.
You realize that. I have NOTHING
LEFT! I want to die!”
The dreaded words; an empty threat that you can’t help but
take seriously, especially from someone like Brian. I started to cry.
“How DARE you say that to me? Please don’t EVER say that again!” I said,
the tears now running steadily down my cheeks.
“I’m going to do it, Kristi. You took EVERYTHING FROM ME! And I don’t want to live anymore!”
“I am going to hang up right now and call the police! This is insane! Please tell me right now that I don’t need to
call. TELL ME, BRIAN.”
“FUCKKK! I just can’t do this! I can’t go back to
work! How do I tell everyone that my
fiancé left me?! HOW?”
Despite
avoiding everyone in my family and purposely missing phone calls from my now
ex-fiance’s mother, I tried to stay positive.
To everyone else, I was bat-shit-crazy, certifiably insane. Everyone wanted to know why, because none of
it made sense to them, and it probably never would no matter how many times I
tried to explain it. I wasn’t happy,
period. But most people don’t understand
that, they believe that struggle is a blessing and claiming unhappiness is a
cop-out. But hadn’t they all fallen into
the same complacency I had almost doomed myself forever to? Maybe they could use a few words of wisdom? My Mom took it the hardest. For days she couldn’t even look at me without
crying and every tear put a hole in my already weak heart.
“Please try to explain this to me one more time. I just don’t understand it at all,” she
cried.
She was right, no matter how many times I had tried to
explain it; she didn’t and would never completely understand.
Needless to say, when it rains, it pours. Springtime is supposed to be a time of
rejuvenation; a renewal of life and prosperity.
Sure, it rains 99% of the time, but that 1% makes it all worth it. Kean
University
Summer:
“Ah, summer,
what power you have to make us suffer and like it.” - Russell Baker
(Stilll working on this section).
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