Almost Perfect

Dateline:
Pasadena Blvd.
Pasadena, TX
Sunday, December 17, 2000, early morning

I've driven down Pasadena Blvd. hundreds of time. It's the preferred route from the University to Tanni's house. I don't remember it being this long of a drive. Then again, it's not every day I'm driving home to break off a four year relationship. Hopefully, this will be the first and last time. I just got finished talking to Pierce about it.

When I told Tanni about my doubts, and that they were probably terminal ones, she requested that a number of people talk to me before I do anything rash. Those that knew were taken aback as much as she was. About three days ago I talked to Sola, who was a relatively easy sell. Since Sola knew me longer than Tanni, I was certain that I'd get her support. Though I've been friends with Pierce longer than I've known Tanni, I knew from the start he'd be a tougher sell. He didn't buy my rationale and questioned me on every turn.

I don't know how ironic that all is because I do not yet know that, a month after the breakup, Pierce and Tanni will get together. Within six months, they'll be living together. His inability to convince me will turn out to be the luckiest failure of his life. A year from now, he'll thank me for breaking things off with her and give me this obnoxious look like "you made the biggest mistake of your life."

There will even be times where I'll wonder that myself. When what now looks like a promising prospect with a girl I just met named Elciem falls apart, and when I spend the next year-and-a-half trying to avoid the dual mistakes of Tanni and Elciem, I'll wonder if being in a loveless relationship was really such a bad thing. It's going to hit me hardest almost exactly 18 months from now, when I'll begin to wonder if it's too late to have any regrets.

I'm not thinking about any of that as I drive, though, because I don't know about it. Right now, I've never been more certain that I am doing the right thing.

At first, I thought it was a fluke. There was this young lady from the suburbs of Dallas who had caught my eye. She practically fell all overherself announcing her availability to me, but I wasn't available. Oddly, I went to great pains to avoid telling her that I wasn't, all the while trying to explain, with one false reason or another, why we couldn't be together. It wasn't until I found myself swigging whiskey, watching her dance with some other guy, and feeling jealousy for the first time in years that I realized there was a real problem with Tanni and I. I can't even say it was the liquor talking. I wasn't thinking those thoughts because I was drunk, I was getting drunk to drown the thoughts from out of my mind. I hate whiskey.

The more time passed, and the more I started planning to propose, the deeper the knot in the pit of my stomach became. Sure, there was a period of euphora, but once that fell away all that was left was the feeling that I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life. Though I had no idea why. Then I started finding reasons. One after another. All very practical, all very stupid.

That's where Pierce was most helpful. Through his grilling, I was able to get down to the guts of it all. It wasn't so much about law school or money. Those were just the last defenses. I mistakenly thought they the cause, but rather it was just that once they were peeled away, I saw that the most crucial missing element was my feelings for her. Absent that, the superficialities mattered all the more.

Somewhere along the way, my emotions got derailed. I thought that I was just being strong, but I was really just being hard. When I thought I was being independent, I was instead being isolated. I've become so afraid of being hurt that I've beep building up walls that have not only kept the new pain out, but locked the old ones in.

A week from now, Elciem is going to see through my unhappiness and, despite my best intentions to stay single, I'm going to fall again. Having been out of the emotional game for so long, I'm going to do so stupidly and in reckless disregard for everything that mattered to me a year ago. All because I spent so much time holding all the emotions in.

How did that happen?