Relationships are complicated things, built on trust, faith and honesty. Unfortunately, I'm an untrusting, heretical, liar.
Maybe that's why I'm sometimes bad at relationships.
At a certain point, one must recognize that the only person one can exact change upon is oneself. I'm the kind of person who wakes up (sans alarm) at 7:30 a.m., and still manages to be 40 minutes late to my 10 a.m. recitation. I'm the kind of person to whom best friends will say, "You're the only person I didn't expect to remember my birthday." Sure, I'm also really fun to eat candy with. But who isn't?
Like most of us, sometimes I'm the best and sometimes I'm the worst.
Last Friday, I decided to change -- to improve. Then, I decided to visit Emma.
This was supposed to be my new leaf. The first day of the rest of my life.
"Have you been here before?" Emma asked, and I stood in front of her, shaking in my second favorite pair of cowboy boots.
"Umm, uh, well, uh." Here was my chance -- a single instant in which to prove my mettle. "Umm, no. No, I haven't." She looked me over and nodded her head.
"Okay," she said. "Okay." I felt elated and deflated. She couldn't yell that I'd had my bikini waxed over the summer by someone who was obviously not Russian. Still, I had failed in becoming the new, better me.
Only while I lay, half-naked, my nether-regions bare as a baby's bottom (not yet literally) did Emma call me out.
"You have been here before!" she said, her eyes menacing. "I remember you!"
And there I was, caught in an extremely sticky situation.
I extricated myself carefully, whispering sweet nothings while she yelled about honesty, trust and faith (blah, blah, blah), and when she was done I put my pants back on and went to pay. I couldn't look her in the eye, so I looked down, left a too-generous tip and went outside to smoke a cigarette. While I waited for my friend to emerge Emma walked out and stood next to me.
"What direction are you guys driving in?" she asked. I felt dirty -- the person trying to avoid the next day's awkward brunch.
"You need a ride?" I asked.
"If you're going towards 6th," she said.
"We're not." Again, I was both relieved and disappointed. What do you want, Yona? What are you looking for?
"Ok then," she said, and walked off.
When my friend came out, she too yelled.
"We could have gone out of our way to give Emma a ride," she exclaimed. "Imagine the possibilities!" I hung my head in shame. It was her car, and my issue with commitment.
But in the end, it's the impetus to change that matters. Once it is there, we can ignore it, but we can't avoid it. Baby step by baby step we better ourselves slowly. I've made it to recitation on time before. If I can do it again once, I can do it again twice, too. And I think -- I believe! -- I will revisit Emma in exactly a month, because I promised, and the new Yona follows through.
She intends to at least. And intention is three quarters of the battle, isn't it?
Well, it's a start. -- Yona
