he was older. dated often. jewish. born and bred in this city of skyscrapers.
i was--well, am--still young. an inexperienced dater (to put it mildly). catholic. from a city situated on bayous.
so many differences.
if i had known these things--if he had known, perhaps it wouldn't have begun.
the age alone made it difficult.
but i liked him before i knew. and when i did know, well, then it became just a number.
i asked him early on if he'd ever been married. ever proposed to anyone. those were the things that seemed important. he said no, asked if i needed to know why not. nope. not important, i said.
later, without prompting, he said, i'm not a settler. and never had more perfect words been spoken. and i loved him for that perfect, unprompted response.
and yet. that became the thing. the thing that nailed me in the end.
it was when i realized i was just another girl not worth settling for that my heart began to break.
perhaps, that's too simplistic. but that's what i felt.
i miss him. and i think about him. more often than i'd care to admit. certainly, more often than i'd care for him to know. but maybe the hardest thing has been coping with the knowledge that for him i just wasn't worth it. which becomes am i worth it? which of course, yes, yes, i know that i am.
but it's never about knowing so much as feeling, is it?
and for a while there i felt...unworthy. mediocre. like the kind of girl you can't bring home to mom.
don't get me wrong, i was not looking to meet mom. i just wanted to feel... i just wanted to feel. i don't know. better than that.
the ego takes a hit. and it's coming back to yourself that takes some time.
but a week ago when american pie came on the radio it stirred the low-country girl in me. and i shimmied around my room chasing the sunlight and laughing at my oddities. and the journey home to self trucked right along.
but it takes some time, this truckin'.
it surely takes some time.