for her. She (who will not be named)

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

Margaret Atwood

She’s not someone I talk about.
Honestly she’s not really even someone I think about; after all it’s been almost a decade.  But I do, from time to time, drift back…

Last night was one of those times.

Me and the Mrs. scored tickets to see Wicked on B’way and it was in the last moments of the show…no spoilers I promise…that there is a song called “For Good”. Now for those who know the show (or have seen the Wizard of Oz), you’ll know that the song is between Glinda (the ‘guh’ is silent) the good and Elphaba (The Wicked Witch) and it’s basically the two of them saying goodbye and the whole point is that they have been changed by knowing each other. Even if it’s not necessarily a good change…they hope it’s a good change…they are forever different people because they came into each other’s lives.  It’s a pretty sweet song…and I promise I have a point.

While watching that moment in the show, I suddenly had that weird feeling in my stomach, that goose bumped flesh, that welling behind the eyes, a bona fide reaction and I did not at all know where it was coming from; it certainly wasn’t a sudden catharsis for the green lady and her blonde friend.  It was palpable and powerful.  This song. Meant something. To me.

And then…the flood…

I remembered.

It was the end. And I mean the E.N.D.  As in: the last straw, endgame, final days, the fat lady singing, all over but the crying, all’s well that ends in hell.  It was OVER. We just didn’t know it.   Because it had been over before. Many times and various volumes and intensities it had been over.  Phones smashed. Walls punched.  The “c” word on a few occasions (not my best moment). And tears. And screaming. And Screaming and more screaming.  It had been over more than it had been on.

But somehow we just kept at it.  And I wish I could say that it was all her. I wish I could chalk it up to the original thesis (chix is whack) and wail against the horrors of loving a crazy woman.  And she was crazy.  She was crazy (wasn’t she?).

But.  And this is the moment of painful self-reflection and awareness:  The reason she was crazy is because I made her crazy.  And she made me crazy so I made her crazy. In other words,  WE WAS FUCKING CRAZY.

The people that knew us then liked to say that we were just oil and water but that was not true. Oil and water repel each other. They don’t mix.  We were baking soda and vinegar—two harmless ingredients that are perfectly awesome and useful by themselves, but when combined explode into a bubbling, sticky, stinking mess.  Alone we could make a fine salad or leaven a cake…together we could dissolve bone.

We were a perfect storm of passion and co-dependence; of remembering that first magical year of loving someone like crazy and now hating every fiber of that same person’s being;  of not wanting to give up again when things get rough like I always do and damn we really should end this.   We were a hot sexy passionate two month summer romance that turned into a six year…six fucking years…descent into hell relationship.
And I could tell you stories…many stories that would make you laugh and cringe and shudder and probably think much less of me…and maybe one day I will but probably not.  It’s not important now. Right now I want to talk about the end.

It was August.  I’d come up to see her in her hometown…did I mention we didn’t live in the same city? We didn’t even live in the same state.  We had to physically be in different zip codes just to be able to function in society at this point.   Anywhoo…so I had come up to visit, to fulfill an obligation that the two of us had agreed to do a year before…some 48 hour film thing.  And we had, surprise surprise, fought the entire forty eight hours non stop. And it was a particularly ugly day that had culminated in someone’s sister being called a whore and someone else smashing that someone’s glass vanity table into oblivion (I told you we fought mean and dirty)  and her mom was crying and we were screaming and I was trying to pack and just get the hell out of there. And I’m packing my car and she comes out.

“I want to play you a song”

“I have to go”

“I need you to hear this”

“let me go!”

“just let me play you this one song”

I figured…fine. I’ll listen to this song and then we can have yet another fight because I won’t understand what it’s supposed to mean but I’m tired so let’s just get this over.
We sit in her car and she takes out her Wicked Original Broadway Soundtrack.  She was obsessed with Wicked.

“This song reminds me of you. When I hear it, I think of us”

And she played the song. THAT song. “For Good”.

And sitting in that car with her, listening to that song together, with six horrible years behind us and God knows how many horrible years in front of us (none it would turn out, but we didn’t know that then)  was strangely calming.  Your basic Eye of the Hurricane moment I guess.  We sat there. We listened. She cried. I cried. And then I got out of the car, hugged her and drove home.

And that was the last moment I was in her physical presence. We imploded…ended with the cellphone smash heard round the world…and went on to live rather normal, happy lives.  And this six years became, at least for me, a dark embarrassing blip in my past.

And I forgot, honestly forgot about that song.  Until last night.

And having a decade between the first and second times I heard it…a decade and two different loves: one stupid and one awesome…afforded me a sense of clarity that I was lacking the first time.

I realized that that moment in her car was our swansong. But more than that…it was HER moment of grace.  See I know now that we humans are for the most part a planet of the fucked up but each of us, everyone at some time is capable of purity; a moment of true and absolute grace.  And embracing these moments bring us closer to the divine. Or something.  She was saying goodbye to me. Maybe she knew it and maybe she didn’t but that song in her car was the best way for her to tell me that even though it was buried somewhere deep inside and scarred from many years of battle, inside her heart was a love for me. And when we give our heart to someone and love them fully with everything we have and everything we know how to give, then we are changed. For better or for worse we are fundamentally different beings.  And because of her I was different. And because of me she was different. And because of us, we were different. Forever, maybe not for better (apologies Mr. Ono) but changed.

So I thank her. For the good times. For the fun and for the love.  And I forgive her for all the shit and I really hope she forgives me because I am truly sorry for it all.  But most of all, I want her to know that from this moment on, when I do remember her…when I talk about her (I’m not gonna do that a lot)…that day in the car…that song, will be what I close with.  Because in the middle of all of it, she chose to send me off with a message of hope and grace; that no matter what we had done and what we went through, at the end of the day,  we’d be okay.

And you know?  She was right.