I'm Not Okay

I want to tell you that it’s all going to be okay. That when the night comes there will be one to retire beside you. One who understands you and can offer the comfort you will need. One to circumvent the pain of completion that must needs be rendered. One to lie to your face in pure and honest love. But alas, all of this is considerably more than I can insure.

What I can tell you is this: you pay for your sins. And not only for your sins, but for the sins of those around you. The sins of those you love. And the ones you might have loved. So, I am sorry, but I can offer very little consolation for the coming night. Only that sometimes, out of the fog, walks a last minute pardon. And she looks nothing like you imagined.

Winter returned to Chicago today and we were not prepared. Not one to rush the post-resurrection fashion stipulations, I had planned on waiting until Wednesday anyway, to don my Caucasian chinos from last year’s Old Navy clearance. Easter clearly in the past, I anxiously pulled a pair of stiff white cargo pants out of their dark hibernation in the back of the closet. I had to run a lint brush over them several times in order to remove all the hair my cat, Jason Hill, had freely contributed to the din. Little did I know that Jesus had seen his shadow upon exit from the tomb. There would be at least 3 more weeks of winter in store for us all. And just for icing, today he dropped 2 inches of the wet, cold fluffy stuff on the city’s unsuspecting citizens.

So, it was a pain in the ass getting up and out today. I really wanted to sit inside, make some soup and watch this documentary on Jimi Hendrix that I had picked up at the library. What I didn’t want, however, was the shitty feeling bound to overcome me if I freely donated one more day to my chronic incompletion of necessary and vital tasks. I put on a pair of legitimate blue jeans and my anti-Starbucks consumer whore t-shirt and made the trek to Panera Bread. I am such a blatant hypocrite.

I figured the least I could do on such an unexpectedly nasty day was get a little writing done. I sat down in a corner booth with my legal pad and a breakfast Panini. There was not a damn word on that page when I saw her sitting there. Reading a trashy novel. Hunched down at the two-top right next to me. A blue knit cap with protruding pigtails and a pair of frosty pink lips. Hands cupping her steaming coffee. A lover I hadn’t seen in over 10 years.

I didn’t want to get into it with her. Not that we had ended bad. It’s just one of those things. You let sleeping dogs lie. You leave the past alone. And definitely, if you were lucky enough to have had a fairly amicable parting, then that shit should stay sealed and buried. Otherwise, things get awkward. Well…

She said she was okay. Just okay. She wasn’t with anyone currently, but that could change any day now. (These were her words and not my gross assumptions, mind you) There had been many assholes in (and subsequently out) of her life since our breakup, but she assured me that I had could hardly be considered a part of that group. I caught her up on me, and the pathetic existence I was eking out as an actor/writer/rock star/chef. She didn’t seem to be too interested in it all. There were two burly, young commodities traders in $1000 suits having their lunch immediately diagonal to the two places we occupied and I think she was trying to elicit their stares. In fact, I know she was. She kept doing this thing with her frosty lips and pigtails. She was pretty successful. Four rich eyes were on us. Well…on her. But when she reached into her purse for a second, I kind of intimated that we were together and the two suits backed off. Damn those arrogant commodities traders. Who do they think they are? They have all the money and they want all the girls too. I’m sure they were frightened at the thought of my 150 pound frame forcing my size 9s into their collective ass. Oh yeah, they were scared.

We talked a while longer (my old lover) and then we were done. It wasn’t like that song by Dan Fogelberg – Same Old Lang Syne – I mean, we didn’t meet in a grocery store and drink a six-pack in her car, talking about our new loves and reminiscing about the old times, until we laughed and cried and stared regret in the face before passing into the sad night. And no – the snow did not turn into rain. This was Panera bread – as I stated before. The undigested pig on that breakfast Panini was beginning to weigh pretty heavy in my gut and I still had not accomplished one solitary thing.

It was strange when we ended it today. I remember it was the same 10 years ago. We both gave cordial “nice seeing ya”s and admitted we both had things we had to do. Pressing things. I leaned back over into the corner booth I had been straddling for the last hour and she stuck her head back down into the pages of her bustier ripping rot. But not before she laid a final statement on me. A statement I wont soon forget.

“I know you think you’re okay right now. And you very well may be. But when the night finally settles on you – and it will – you better remember to pray.”
This from a girl reading escapades of heroic oral pleasure and trying to land a pair of beefy downtown traders at the Panera bread.

I finished off my second cup of coffee and begin to pen what would eventually become this essay. She sat there reading as if we had never met.

Post script: Several more hours have passed now. I’ve finished my piece and she is long gone. Blew out like the wind with not another word spoken. No acknowledgement. No head nod. Just a blind exit. Even now the whole encounter strikes me as so odd. I don’t believe in coincidence so I just keep asking myself “why”.

The snow outside has become more sparse. It is no longer white, but gray. It is April. Our days are longer now, but somehow, I don’t trust that logic today. I must get back before dark.