Big and I

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That is the first line of a tale of two cites. Big and I are a tale of two cities. My city and his. My life and his. My personality and his. Give me a moment to explain. Meet Big: He is fun, he is hopelessly intelligent, he is nice and kind and sometimes he does display compassion and mostly, he has a very cool sense of humour. He is a guy who has alot going for him. Great job, great friends, great life, great confidence, great adventure. At least that's what it looks like from my perspective on the outside looking in. I assume it's what most people see when they are looking in. Either that or I have a pretty distorted perspective. Meet I: I am all the above only in a very toned down manner. Very, very toned down. I am intelligent, pretty but I usually live vicariously through other peoples escapades and adventures. I'm my best with him and I'm my worst with him. It is the best of times and it is the worst of times. I'd like to think that every girl has a Big somewhere. Some get married to them, some kill them and some like me, use them for writing material and inspiration and maybe someday when we are old, we'll tell our grandkids about this guy I once knew who was like no one else I had ever met. I don't know if "muse" is the right word to use but the first time I posted something on this blog, it was because of him. Someone who drove you insane enough to wonder if this was love or you needed to check yourself into an asylum for check-ups. He drove me short of drawing those love heart things where you write both your names in. I was too proud to do that, lest anyone I knew...or didn't know... saw it and then I had to explain my insanity. He may never know or maybe he may know tomorrow. Maybe one of our collective intelligent friends will read between the lines and call him saying, "you do not want to read what she's written about you." and he'd go "No, she di'in't" I do not know. Because well, Big and I are a story long-winding Mexican soaps are made of. Only without the dramatic poor chic and the evil stepmother and the ranch inheritance and horse back riding....(with a pumped up intro like that don't you just want to watch Big and I) He is a relationship I can honestly say lived more in my mind than in real life. I filled in the gaps with great dramatisations that were played out on other men, only they didn't react like he would have. In fact, the crazy part is he rarely reacted like he should have. That was the relationship that I had between Big and I. A big relationship which left a big impact. You don't forget those. I think the truth about this whole "relationship" hit me hard last night when I sat there willing my phone to beep and hoping that the text will come through. 4 hours and a full season of "Sex and the City" later, I gave up and decided to stare a my orange wall and wait for the sun to come up. It hit me hard. But somehow this time it was different somehow. Like a peaceful letting go. I didnt blame him for my insomnia like I usually do. I didn't feel downtrodden and afraid of what he would reply to a "hey". I didn't imagine him being run over by angry models in stilettos. I didn't imagine his neighbour mistaking him for a weed smoker and calling the cops. I was just tired. Tired of making excuses about where he was, how busy he was or how much credit he had. I had had many nights where I wondered what he would say to "hi" or "hey" ...(don't look at me like that! I did claim temporarily insane at the beginning!) Whether if I slept he would know I was pretending not to care. For years of more back than forth, more silence than conversations, more wonder than certainty, it was a game I had learnt to play, and to play well. A game I had suddenly become very tired of. I lived on the edge with a very specific fear of his brother calling me to ask why I didn't attend Big's wedding. If this was living on the edge, I did not like it one bit. I needed to finally be very selfish and brutal with myself. I needed to ask myself, "what the hell did I think I was doing to myself?" "was I f*ing serious that this is how I wanted to live out my life?" Just like that, it stopped being about him and what he had done or not done and what he had said and not said or what he had meant or not meant. It was suddenly not about Big. It was never about him. It was about me and what I wanted and mostly what I needed. What I had and not done to myself, what I had said and not said to myself. I had been unknowingly letting him make those decisions for me for years. At least for 3 months every year. It wasn't fair to give him such a Big job. No wonder he wasn't doing so great at it. It was maybe time to release him of those particular duties. He is still a great guy with one of the biggest hearts I know. His humour hits you like a bus full of clowns and boy, when he smiles at you, it disarms everything in you. And maybe when I'm very drunk I shall tell some poor soul about this great guy I once knew who had beautiful, thick eyebrows. It was the best of times but it was also the worst of time. But like everything else in life, we take the good with the bad, we learn something from it and we move on to the next great adventure.