How I know my person is my person: cheeseburger hoagie edition.
I remember thanking my high-school best friend for always coming on my questionable, poorly planned adventures with me.
They’ve taken us to sleeping on the floor of the greyhound station after walking rashes into both of our thighs, afraid to take the subway.
Down a creek, water strong enough I couldn’t stop, my mother was freaking out but going with the flow had never felt so liberating. We walked barefoot, bathing-suit clad with my little brother, down the highway and I was so sure if I stuck my thumb out, asked for a ride, we’d take a trip right into an old movie – flickering across the screen, sepia browning out everything that was seconds before, so vividly green.
The other side of the state, staying in a stranger’s basement – both too invested in criminal minds to not contemplate the possibility that the thumps and bumps upstairs are them blood-proofing the soon-to-be murder scene. We made it to the concert just fine, and home. They were a nice family.
I remember never feeling like I had to be anyone other than myself around my high-school best friend. That is the best kind of friend you can have. Let them set a precedent for how you should love, be loved.
Years later my therapist would ask me If your best friend told you the same things you’re telling me, would you react as harshly to her? Would she talk to you the same way you’re talking to yourself?
When I said no, I started asking myself this question any time I found myself talking to myself, about myself. The answer was almost always no – so I stopped. Not asking the question, surprisingly, but the lashing out against myself so often I was choking the words out multiple times a day.
I’m sorry mom – I didn’t mean to ask the same question over and over and over again – it’s maddening.
It’s what helped me see it, though, when I found another person that was without a doubt, for me.
This isn’t the first time I’ve recognized this quality in him but it’s easily the most recent – at least until I’m done writing this out. You see the list is ever-growing and I can’t promise this will be the most relevant for long because one of my favorite things about him is how we’re always growing, letting go, side-by-side, we keep on going.
I woke up ready to have a meltdown for the third day in a row. Three strikes and you’re out, it’s just about the only thing I can quote about a sport. So I packed a bag, asked if he was ready for adventures, and we were out.
It’s only when I feel like I’m on the verge of a psychotic break that I can finally find the courage to let the things I want out – but even still, I’m adaptable when I have company so I can compromise and trade a 3-hour drive to see a bridge for a 2-hour drive to see some rusty, broken down street cars in the middle of the woods.
In fact, I’m so adaptable that when I find out, only when we get there, that no – of course things aren’t exactly as you remembered them being from 2 years ago and yes – there are way more trespassing signs and surveillance than before and no – you are not trekking through the woods, on camera, 5 months pregnant because there is no way in hell you’re getting away if anyone comes, even if you keep your face hidden… I’m so adaptable that I don’t throw a fit and we move on to the next stop instead.
I’ve wanted a cheeseburger hoagie, only from this deli, for at least 2 weeks now. It always hits at this time of year. I don’t want to say I ever plan trips around it, but anywhere I checked as a back-up option to our adventure had to be within an hours drive to justify it so it’s possible that maybe, I plan trips around it.
Long story short – they didn’t have the hoagie. It wasn’t on the menu. I didn’t bother to ask. You see, the moment I realized that this is when it started – when things stopped going according to plan – I cracked. I cracked like a dam, cascading water at the seams. My person didn’t seem upset or embarassed by me, just asked if I needed to leave.
Long story short – we sat in the car for at least half an hour. I wasn’t trying to work up the courage to go back in, even if that’s how it looked from the other end. I was trying to work up the courage to leave. When I finally did, tears still erupted abruptly, just about the whole hour and a half drive home. At one point it came out – he thought I was crying over the hoagie.
I mean, fuck, it makes so much sense – staring at the menu, cheeseburger hoagie-less, accepting my fate. Of course it seemed like I was crying over a hoagie.
I didn’t know where the words were to tell him that I was in the same place that I learned to stop voicing what I want, to say fuck my plan when someone else thought theres was more important. I didn’t know how to say that I had worked so hard to get to where I wanted to be but over something stupid, I gave it up so easily.
I didn’t know how to voice that my meltdown wasn’t over the lack of ooey-gooey cheese, melty all over my mouth but the way I stopped caring about what I wanted in favor of the dreams of everyone else. Stopped voicing my needs and stopped trusting myself.
Eventually, I caved and the truth came out but my person is my person because when he thought I was crying, full-blown tantrum, over being hoagie-less, I never got the feeling that he loved me any less. He let me have my breakdown and when I’m ready, always lets me confess.
My person is my person because he never tries to change me, always goes along with it.
Much love, until next time.
Madeline May I... 