A warm spring night…

I’m sitting here listening to “insensitive” by Jann Arden which always always reminds me of two springs ago…the end of college. The goodbye I never wanted to say but always knew I would. Maxie sent me a comment on my playlist, and it reminded me of the emotions that this song can conjure up…emotions i had long since forgotten about until I spaced out listening to them, remembering for a moment one night at karaoke when I sang them and walked away crying.

how do you cool your lips, after a summers kiss?
how do you rid the sweat after the body bliss
how do you turn your eyes, from the romantic glare?
how do you block the sound of a voice, you’d know anywhere?
oh i really should have known by the time you drove me home
by the vagueness in your eyes your casual goodbyes
by the chill in your embrace the expression on your face
that told me maybe you might have
some advice to give on how to be insensitive
how do you numb your skin after the warmest touch
how do you slow your blood after the body rush
how do you free your soul after you found a friend
how do you teach your heart it’s a crime to fall in love again
oh you probably won’t remember me
it’s probably ancient history
I’m one of the chosen few who went ahead and fell for you
I’m out of bold i’m out of touch
I fell too fast i feel too much
I thought that you might have some advice to give
on how to be insensitive

oh i really should have known by the time you drove me home
by the vagueness in your eyes, your casual goodbyes
by the chill in your embrace, the expression on your face that told me
maybe you might have some advice to give on how to be insensitive - Jann Arden

It was then that the greatest fling of my life ended. I believe it was my birthday weekend or perhaps the weekend after that the goalie I had a couple of hookups with told me he was leaving. This didn’t really matter because I too, was leaving.

He was a freshman at the ripe age of 20 and was supposed to be a star goalie. Somehow, he fucked it up and coach decided not to resign his scholarship.

The goalie. While it never went anywhere, I struggled for a good five months not to get attached, I struggled not to let my emotions get involved and let my heart get caught up in the stares, the caresses, the kisses, the… everything I wanted so badly and couldn’t have. Couldn’t have with him. It was too far out of reach. He cut me off for a period of time because he was afraid I wanted a relationship, which while I wouldn’t have been opposed to it at the time, it wouldn’t have been the greatest idea. And I knew that then and I still know it now. Sometimes, you need to be reminded of why things didn’t happen because after all… everything happens for a reason.

My pal, H, who tutored him, reminded him that I too, was getting ready to leave, and wanted nothing more than a couple nights of fun. it wasn’t fully a lie, but it wasn’t fully the truth either. I wanted an emotional connection. I’ve always wanted an emotional connection. At that time, i wanted to know what it was like to wake up next to the boy who taught me what sexual chemistry was, a boy who got me, who could have made me weak in the knees just by looking at me from across a crowded bar. Not only that but I feel that I wanted an out from the boy who for most of my college career pulled my heart strings that I had been having a rocky, tumultuous relationship with for the year and half prior to me meeting goalie.

I still remember the night we met. I still remember being introduced to him by H.

“Goalie, this is Heidi.”

He looked me up and down and nodded saying “hey.” He smiled slyly as he appeared to be pleased with what he saw.

I looked him up and down and looked back at my friends. “Hey.” I was not amused. I wasn’t having H set up with some jerk off hockey player. I knew what they were like and I had been burned badly by their type before, I was not about to let it happen again. They were the type of boys that I loved to look at in college, I may have kissed a few at bars, but rarely let myself get caught up. I didn’t want to get hurt. Or attached. And by April? I was both of those.

He called me later that night when T was staying with me, it was his first visit down from home and I was having a blast partying with one of my best friends from high school. On top of that? The ex was over chatting with us. I don’t remember why we hadn’t been talking but that night i called him up and had him meet us at the pub so he did and as was always the case, he and I wound up at home. “So are you coming over to my dorm?”

“umm…no?” I scoffed at the idea of spending the night in a freshman dorm as a senior.
“why not?”
“i don’t do freshman dorms kid.”
“Well you should. I’d show you a good time.”
“I really can’t. I have company. A friend of mine is visiting from home.”
“Oh. I thought you were going to say another guy.”
“HA! No.”

I hung up and laughed staying up chatting with tpup.

Three weeks later, the night of my friends christmas party, I went to the pub, and went up to him. He was sitting in the corner surrounded by teammates. I caught his eye, approached him and said “hey.”
“Hey yourself.”
“So what are you doing later?”
“Drinking…you?”
“Huh, thats funny cause I’m pretty sure you’re coming home with me.”
And, at last call. He did.

He smoked on the short walk across the street. Which I hated but I never said anything about it. The taste of tobacco from his lips was so…intoxicating, that I let a pet peeve of mine slide with him. He held my hand crossing the street. We both stumbled a little bit in our drunken stupors.

He had the most piercing blue eyes that could just look into me. I remember one night, he was getting dressed, I was walking up to my friends apartment for late night movies. I remember leaving telling her I’d call her in two hours. Two hours it was.

“Goalie, you take good care of our girl.” she said laughing while running off. After we finished, as we got dressed in my tiny single room, he noticed a picture of me and the former goalie whom he replaced. “Did you and [other goalie] ever hook up?”
“No.” I said coldly. Not wanting to remember that.
“Why not?”
“Never the right opportunity I guess. Not for lack of trying though.”
“Huh.” He said nonchalantly. “His loss.”

We hadn’t spoken much between February when we got into an argument at the bar and my birthday but he ran into me after i was walking home drunkenly after celebrating my twenty-third birthday. I was shit faced, as was he. He stood real close to me, and we hugged as he wished me a happy birthday. “have you heard the news?”

“No. What?” I knew what he was going to say. H had already told me. I knew. I was numb to the news, too busy dealing with my own overwhelming anxieties about my impending graduation to deal with my emotions about never seeing him again.

“I’m leaving. I’m not coming back.”

I had hoped to be with him one more time. I knew it was a bad idea. He kissed me on the cheek one last time that night. But he turned away after saying “I can’t do this” and walked home with his roommate.

After all the partying was done, I broke down in the quiet of my room. Looking out over the city I knew and loved so well, I broke down thinking about the coulda, woulda, shoulda’s a la Carrie Bradshaw.

I mean, how many people do you really have that intoxicating chemistry with? How many people do you meet that just…get you…without even knowing you.

He once told H that he couldn’t handle me. I was too strong for him. I knew what I wanted. I wasn’t about to chase him, even though toward the end I did a little bit. Also, he couldn’t deal with the thought of having feelings for me which H also told me. H was the constant go between for us. He introduced us, and saw the end of us. It was really quite sad because while it never amounted to more than a couple one night stands, it will always stand out in my mind.

His arms. His eyes. The way he breathed in, smelling me when I laid close to him. The way he complimented me, how he told H i was the best he had ever had, how he scoffed at the fact that I hadn’t been with the former goalie that I had affections for, that he “missed out.” The way he embraced me. It was all too much, and too little at the same time.

He has a girlfriend now. There’s a picture of them kissing up on the facebook. I hope he’s as happy as I am these days and looks back on me with a sly smile, remembering our times fondly for what it was and not what it could have been.

Ultimately, everyone comes into our lives for a reason and I for one, don’t have any regrets. Had I pursued something? It would have ended abruptly. I would have been more heartbroken than I was, and thus…am better off the ways things being as they were. It’s two years later, I’m happy in a relationship with a man that I know I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. I wouldn’t change anything even if I could.

But some days, when you hear certain songs…you just have to let them take you back.