10/15
This is a dream starring someone I’ve come to recognize as New Alex. (For the purposes of this explanation, I will refer to my current self as Old Alex.) New Alex is a few years down the road and happy, proof that Old Alex can get past this dark chapter in her life (as she has come to think of it) and will one day even thrive. New Alex will be confident and smile more and has taken Old Alex’s inability to fight for her opinions under pressure and, instead of just meekly saying “I understand” or “okay” the way Old Alex does, argues swiftly, if not always logically, but always with passion behind her words. Sometimes this gets New Alex in trouble but New Alex has evolved beyond wanting to please everyone, secretly fearing that being honest will lose her the friends she has, and thus is content to be content with herself and sometimes making other people upset. New Alex even remembers how Old Alex used to often give up on things that really did matter to her, and sometimes wonders if she should go back to being a little more polite if only so she would have less of a reputation as a pitbull, but always steadily talks herself out of regressing. New Alex often appears with different hair, sometimes in loose waves, sometimes red, sometimes with a long white streak in the front. New Alex almost always pops up with a boyfriend or a husband, probably some subconscious indicator of what Old Alex considers success, and this dream is no different.
I am in college, on a year abroad, studying in Germany, and Christmas is coming. My parents have set aside the money to bring me home but a few friends are planning to use the time to backpack, and save the plane fare, and I gently let my mother down over the phone. There are initial pangs of sadness for disappointing her, but then I realize I won’t have this opportunity again, and that it is only one Christmas, and the saved money is a substantial sum my parents can use to make things easier at home, and I promise my mother I will call her as much as I can over the break, and definitely call on Christmas and its eve.
But then, about a week before Christmas, right as classes are ending, the plans all fall through, and everyone seems to have had a back-up plan: family in another country, a host family that looks forward to opening their home to a lonely college student for the holidays, spare cash for a last minute fare to someplace. But I don’t have these options, and begin to fret about doing the whole journey by myself, because what other option do I have?
My boyfriend, a boy I am only casually dating, had been planning to spend the holiday with a friend’s family in Dusseldorf, and offers to bring me, but I decline, and the day before classes let out, as I sit in my tiny dorm, looking out at the rain, he surprises me with a last-minute plan to go home with him for the holidays. Oh, I say, surprised, I couldn’t. You have plans, and I don’t want to be your charity for Christmas. It’s such a kind offer, but I really, I can’t.
My boyfriend is insistent, almost angry. I want to take you home, he says. My parents are looking forward to this. We start to argue a bit, and he pounds his fist on my desk, and then runs his hand through his hair, which is a mix of red and light brown. Finally, after some more stomping around on both our parts, he sighs. Just come home with me, he says. It’s not a big deal. He looks out the window, and adds, the weather will probably be just as bad, but you’ve always wanted to see Ireland, right?
I groan, and he smiles. He knows he’s got me now.
A few days later, and we are driving with his father into areas more and more rural, finally stopping at a house on a hill outside of a small town. I have not told my mother about my change in plans for fear she will be hurt, and plan on lying to her when I call and say I am jumping around Europe. I know it’s scummy but I am still a coward.
Inside, everything is warm, and I am removing my coat and taking off my galoshes, and meeting his mother. Both his parents are a little reserved but polite, kind to a girl they didn’t know about until a week ago. His mother is a mousy brunette and stringy, but with big blue eyes and an sharp nose. His father is a taller and a little portly and balding and has a very feminine, musical laugh that lulls me into a smile.
We sit down to eat dinner, it is already late in the evening, and talk. What is America like? his parents ask, and I can see this boy is curious but pretending like it is a stupid question, and I try to narrow down a place so large in every sense to a few words, and then ask about Ireland, and they have just as much trouble answered as I did. I always find it easy to tell stories about my parents or my brother than it is to tell stories about myself—I haven’t gone anywhere, haven’t done anything—so I talk about the first Christmas my parents were married, and then ask them about theirs, how they met. They talk about my boyfriend the way parents of only children always do, and he blushes and I grin, genuinely happy even if I can already tell his mother doesn’t care for me.
Later, I do the dishes with her, and she pries, pries much further than I anticipated, more than I am comfortable with, and I don’t know whether or not to lie, what sort of parents they are and what they expect from my answers, if I am putting my boyfriend in a bad spot—but when the spotlight is on me I freeze and tell the truth because I can’t think of what else to do. I am standing in a kitchen in a foreign country, two days before Christmas, being interrogated by the mother of a guy I am not seriously dating, and want to shrivel into a corner because my god she really did just ask if we are having sex and I really did just say yes. I am red, red all over, and I don’t even know what to do. We finish washing the dishes and, after my boyfriend gives me a chaste kiss on the cheek in front of his parents, I retire to the den. I lay awake half the night staring at the ceiling, wondering how I am going to get through the next few days, before I can escape to a hostel somewhere, or something.
The next morning, after an early breakfast, the boyfriend and I go out to see the town, and it is raining (what is new, I ask aloud), so I pull on my blue rubber boots, the ones that go all the way up to my knees, and pull on my coat and my hat, and then we traipse the hills into town, look at the shops, most of them closed, get some tea (I sip it but cannot hide the displeasure on my face), walk back to the house after a few hours, and it starts to rain a little less, and we are both being sort of stupid, already so wet that we will have to change once inside, so we jump in puddles and push each other into the tall grass, getting muddy. He chases me inside, and his mother is almost smiling, a faint trace of it on her face. His father and I talk about sports—even if our sports don’t overlap, we both acknowledge the pride we have for hometown teams, and I talk about baseball, and he talks about god knows what, because I am not really paying attention, I am trying to listen to the boyfriend and his mother murmur in the kitchen.
We go to a midnight mass, and I am lost in the Catholicism, not understanding anything because I haven’t gone to church in—
Thirteen years? his father gasps. I nod, reluctant to admit it. Damn the Irish and their fucking religion, I think, and try not to snicker at how terrible I am on fucking Christmas.
But the next morning things are pleasant: we exchange gifts, his parents even seem to like the impersonal knick-knacks I bought them, and I am now the proud owner of a lovely, warm scarf. I use my calling card and get ahold of my parents in the evening, and tell my mother that the home I am staying in is the first of many stops along this journey, lying in a low voice when I am sure no one can hear me. My mother cries a little, but I tell her I will see her in only a few more months, because I will find a way to come home, if only for a few days, before coming home for good in the summer.
The days pass, and pass, and I am beginning to love it here, and his parents have even warmed to me, and finally I am heading back to Germany, about a week before the boyfriend will, and the day before I leave, we have sex in the barn of a friend down the road before I leave, and afterward we both pull our rain boots back on and walk the few miles home in the fog.
When he is back in Germany, he spends the night at my dorm, my roommate still away, and we just lie in bed and sleep, and he whispers in my ear that his parents say I grew on them, and that when his father drove me to the airport, and he and his mother stood outside and waved us away, he turned back at her and said, That is the girl I am going to marry.
My mother laughed, he adds. She said I sounded like a movie.
I laugh at him. You do sound like a movie, I say. A horrible romantic comedy I never want to see. I play with his hands a little, nervous, and then add, And don’t joke about these things—we’re only kids.
But instead he holds me tighter and I relax into it, and we fall asleep.
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I get more personal on this tumblr than on either of the others, which is why I am glad only two people are following it. I hope neither of you feel obligated to because you know it exists, or something.
Also, thanks. It’s nice to think someone’s listening and not laughing.
