The Reason

Ryan was at the house today to take a look at a few things on my car.  It was the first time I’d seen him in more than a month and I honestly don’t even remember the last time he set foot in my house.

It was weird.  I got a little crabby about it.

He came in the house to cool off after we’d figured out everything we needed to figure out and when I sat down he commenced with his usual snooping to see if anything new and interesting had appeared on the scene.  He’s like a puppy like that.

He picked something up from the table beside the couch and asked, “Why do you have a Disney coloring book?”

“Because you broke up with me,” I answered.

What?
He asked.

The Things We Have In Common

Emily is my favorite.

We quiz each other on Disney lyrics throughout the work day and play Bookworm together on our lunch breaks.  We sing obnoxiously and skip down the street and tell stories about working at the Cracker Barrel and stupid ex boyfriends and go to the theater to see kids’ movies and do puzzles and sit by the pool drinking beer and dance to the band and flirt with the singer when we’ve both had a little to drink.  She let me cry just a little at work the day after my break up with Ryan and is letting me gush and rant and be completely confused and frustrated about the fact that I’m crushing on somebody else ALREADY.

There is a vibe. Is there a vibe?  You see it too?  What?  EVEN OUR BOSS SAW IT? Good god.  Okay.  But this is okay right?  Is this okay?  What about the fact that I still go home and cry about being broken up and get up in the morning looking forward to seeing someone else?  AM I CRAZY?  I’m not?  Good.  I DON’T BELIEVE YOU.

Can we eat mac and cheese and watch the Little Mermaid on our lunch break?

Okay.

Truth is, Ryan meant as much to me as he did, and does, because he came along when I really just needed a FRIEND around this place.  I’ve said that and that’s not new.  But I’d have never gotten through this Ryan stuff if it hadn’t been for Emily because she IS my friend and she is a FANTASTIC friend.  We have the same brain.

Oh my goodness.

The Way It Will Be

October 29th is the day one of my very best friends, my little brother, was born.  It was the day I lost a grandparent for the first time.

And it was the day I met Ryan.

Call me crazy, but that’s how I knew, and still know, he was supposed to be in my life.  Things worth remembering happen on October 29th.

A little over a week ago I sat at my kitchen table, writing a letter.  I was shaking with emotion, pleading my case with every bit of strength I had left–please, stay or go… but I need you to choose.

Already knowing he’d be out, I drove out to his house and walked around his backyard, looking at his Studebakers, lined up in the yard for the afternoon.  The red car was finished.  It was only the second time I’d seen it out of the garage.  I taped the letter to his door, turned my little orphan car around, and drove away.

I wasn’t at all surprised when he called Monday night to say he didn’t think we should be seeing each other anymore.

My brother, one of my very best friends, was sitting on my couch watching Harry Potter when I walked out of my room.  I refused to cry.  I laid down and commented on the movie.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I could only nod.

The next day was hard, but the days following were easier.  Much easier than expected.  It’s not that I didn’t or still don’t have feelings for him.  It’s just that we should have stopped dating each other months ago.  And I was sad, but I felt better.

But I met him on the 29th of October.  I met him at a time in my life when I didn’t have very many friends I could count on, certainly not in the same zip code, or state, or general area of the country.  He was interesting and easy to talk to and he was from the midwest and he liked my music and I gave him my number not because it even occurred to me to make a move, but because I really needed a friend.

And we started dating, and the dating was fun.  The relationship aspect that existed between the two of us never got very serious.  I’d have liked it to, sure.  We weren’t in the same place when it came to what we wanted from our lives.  But that didn’t change the fact that nobody understood me the way he did.  No one could be truthful with me the way he could, could relate to me the way he could, could knock any kind of common sense into me the way he could, and he never even had to try.

He said the thought of a relationship turned him off because he liked things he knew how to fix.  Cars you oil and grease and twist the nuts and bolts and eventually the car would run.  Girls aren’t more complicated, they’re just not as straight forward.  You can’t use your hands, your elbow grease.  There’s no real way to know when you’ve really done your job.

I always thought that was so silly because all he had to do was answer his phone and make me smile and let me cry a little and I was fixed.  There was nothing more he’d have ever had to do.

And that is why I couldn’t bring myself to put an end to a situation I knew neither of us particularly liked anymore.  Because I was afraid that losing the cuddling and the kissing and the frustration at the differences in what we wanted from each other in that particular situation would mean losing the talking and the coffee and the… everything else.

Ryan was — and is — one of my best friends.  How do you just give that up?

People say you can’t be friends with your exes.  You broke up for a reason.  You won’t be strong enough to keep things platonic.  Someone’s feelings will get hurt in the end.

I know we were right.  I know we did the right thing.

I called him after work tonight.  We’ve texted each other a few times but this was the first time we’ve really talked since the night he called to call things off.  He sounded good.  He’s already a completely different person than he was a week ago.  Things are changing.  I bought a puzzle and coloring books… Maybe all of those things he’s doing are his own way of getting over me.  But he sounded happy to hear from me and I told him to call me.  Whenever he feels like it.

We’re going to try being friends.

It’s going to be fucking hard and it’s going to hurt like a bitch.

But it will be worth it.

The Broken Road

On my way to work this morning, already fighting tears as best I could, some divine sort of intervention happened and Rascal Flatt’s “Bless the Broken Road” started playing.

There was no fighting the tears anymore.

I set out on a narrow way, many years ago
Hoping I would find true love along the broken road
But I got lost a time or two
Wiped my brow and kept pushing through
I couldn’t see how every sign pointed straight to you

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart, they were like northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

And I guess it was what I really needed to hear and I guess someone out there knew that.

I don’t regret him, he wasn’t a mistake.

But there are better things to come.

The First Love, The Hometown, The Dream

Cedric was my first love.

We all have them.  It’s a whirlwind of feelings you don’t understand, stars in the sky, flourishes of flutes, kisses, fights, tears.

And when it’s all over, maybe you never really fall out of love.

I don’t think about him often.  We’re facebook buddies, and when I’m back in the hometown, I’ll do my best to hang around wherever I think I might run into him.  I’ll let him tease me and I’ll tease him back and we’ll catch up on life and love and music and give each other a hug and be on our own ways.  It’s been longer than I’d care to remember since I fell in love with him, and I don’t really know that I could tell you when I was finally, truly okay after he’d gone.  I am now. That’s what matters.

But he’s still Cedric.  He’s still the one who took me to my junior prom, who curled up with me on his best friend’s couch, watching movies.  He’s the one who built me a fire in my grandma’s fireplace on my 16th birthday, who drove hours and hours just to hold my hand, who let me tell him when he wasn’t done kissing me yet, thank you.  He let me call from college, crying over the boys who didn’t love me, who never would.  He was an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, the Montana Speech and Drama State Champion, my favorite red headed Eagle Scout, and somebody anybody could always count on for a laugh.

He was the Big Dog, the big brother, the best friend.

And for a short time, he was living his own little dream.
I guess he still is.

But somebody’s trying to take it away from him, and even though maybe it shouldn’t be, to me, it’s personal.

He and I lived through so many of the same things, and what we lived through was wonderful.  It was wonderful in large part because of the teachers we had– how much they knew, how hard the pushed us, how much they cared.  And I knew, I always knew and still know, that that was what Cedric wanted.  Not only did he want that, but he wanted it in that town, that building, that room.  The kids would be different but the potential and energy and talent would be the same.

It’s not that I’ve ever seen him teach, but I’ve seen him lord over many a marching band, and I have to believe he has what it takes.

And they’re trying to take it away from him.

That program made me who I am.

That was important, so let me say it again.

The Sidney Middle and High School Music Department made me who I am.

I think it’s pretty obvious that Cedric could probably say the same thing.

My heart has been broken time and time again, hearing about who isn’t teaching anymore, and even more, who is.  Is the administration not trying hard enough?  Are they being selfish?  How much do they expect from a first year teacher?  Too much or not enough?

Or both?

I don’t know, but that department made me who I am (its always worth saying one more time) and even the slightest inkling I may have that any kid in that beautiful little town I grew up in might not have the opportunities I had shatters my heart into tiny, irreparable pieces.

I never expected my teachers to stick around forever.  That would have been crazy and unrealistic… but I was there when one of my favorites retired.  They replaced him with a woman just as strong willed and passionate, knowledgeable and talented as he was.  I saw that happen right before my eyes, so it never occurred to me that one day, wrong decision after wrong decision could be made.  I never dreamed  it could all fall apart.

But Cedric.  Cedric swooped in and started putting the little eaglets in little rows.  From what I understand, he really made those kids love music again, really made them work for it, really put everything he had into that program.  And why shouldn’t he?  He knows what potential is there.   When you know how great something can be, don’t you want it to be GREAT?

Cedric did.

90 people showed up to a school board meeting last night to show their support for somebody I couldn’t care more about right now.  My thoughts are on him, on those kids, on that school.  I have never believed anything quite as much as I believe that he is in the right place, doing what he’s meant to do.  He’s got something amazing in his hands, and after the things that department has been through over the past few years, he’s one of the only people I’d trust with it. I just have to hope those 90 people  were enough to make those crazy few on that administrative board see that he is worth trusting.

He’s worth so much more than they’re giving him.