I am the girl on the plane bundled into the sweater and blue fuzzy blanket barricaded behind the big book and the even bigger “DO NOT TALK TO ME” sign flashing overhead because I really, really, (I cannot say this enough.) really do not like talking to the complete stranger who is shoe-horned into the itty-bitty, ever-shrinking seat between the aisle-hugger and me, the blonde huddled against the window. This time though, as I sat turning the pages of my novel, something felt a little bit different, the slightest bit strange as if Tinkerbell had dusted the smiling guy next to me with her fairy dust as he walked down the jetway. And no, he didn’t smell like, uhm, “fairy dust” from a pre-flight sprinkle (sip) or two.
I tried to concentrate on my book as he thumbed the leaves of his non-fiction work about the history of food. Yep, a real page-turner there. After about half an hour, he closed the book, turned to me and said, “Someone gave me this book, and it’s putting me to sleep.” Then he proceeded to talk to me for almost a full three hours, and for once, I didn’t mind at all. What was happening here? He made me laugh, and I found myself liking this guy. Hmmh. It’d been a long time since I’d liked any man enough to smile that much.
Then, he said something like, “You’ve been gone from home a long time. What are you going to do for dinner?” And, what did I say? Wait for it, because it was a true classic Rachael answer. I said, “Oh, gosh, I must have something in the freezer. Gee, I hope so, because I really, really do not want to go out again. All I really want to do is go home, put on my pajamas and slippers and curl up on the couch.” Yep, I did – I really, really did.
When I told my brother about this conversation, he stared at me aghast, shook his head, and said, “You’re an idiot.” Yes, I know – NOW. At the time, it didn’t even occur to me that this nice guy, this guy who made me laugh, was maybe asking me out. In my defense, it’s been a very long time since I’ve had to think about these things, and when I did realize that this poor guy had probably been asking me to dinner (about the time I reached luggage claim), I felt awful for us both. I also understood why he’d immediately gotten that horrified look then jumped up and gone to the lavatory. Ohhhhhh.
After my divorce I’d said that I’d never want to have anything else to do with another man. Cliché, I know, but the pain of deeply intimate relationships that disintegrate just lingers so very long, leaving its slimy, cold fingerprints on everything around me; I just couldn’t imagine ever wanting to wake enough emotionally to feel anything remotely akin to care beyond the polite Southern version. The big, smiling, funny guy in the middle seat on my flight out of Chicago might have been enough to show me that wasn’t necessarily true. Dang it!
Emotions aren’t polite or clean or convenient. I ‘m Southern, and we’re all about polite. I am also my mother’s daughter, and, thus, the “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” bit. I can dispense with the convenient. But I am terrified of being hurt; I honestly don’t know if I can withstand another assault like the last two. In my very expensive self-awareness – therapy does not come cheap – I have not failed to notice I am already leaning toward a tragic end to any new beginning – not an auspicious start. But at least I’m considering a beginning, and that’s something.
Stopping to consider what God had in mind when he dropped that man into the seat next to me, I have to shake my head. We’re told that growth is about a refiner’s fire, about being tested until we’re pure. Maybe in dulling myself emotionally, in refusing to let anyone close enough to hurt me, I am also refusing to let anyone close enough to help refine me, or I them for that matter. Maybe the guy in the middle seat is a reminder that God is still God, and I need to let Him work. So, I’ll try; I really will. I’ll pay attention and try to feel and be open and not die with every cut. That’s all I can promise.
Oh, and I’ll try to be better about knowing when I might be being asked out when it’s happening. No promises about that one.
The Unexpected Life 