Entranced
Kasey
I see her across the room and…swear to God, I don't know that any time has passed.
That's how bitter and wounded and upset I am.
To remember…The amount of history between two people can be so great and so horrible at once…like a Dickensian paradox or something.
I used to be so entranced by her. Met her in a media writing class at Princeton…I was there for the purpose of writing to be best spun by the media, she was there to write as someone in the media…but who gives a damn WHY we were there? We both were and we met and were immediately drawn to each other for reasons passing understanding.
I mean, she was from New York City and all abuzz with that sort of energy - the youth and the vibrance and the…something about her that I never could put my finger on.
And then there was me. I knew nothing of what was cool or fun - for me, fun was sitting in my dorm reading about the presidents of days past. For her, it was going to big parties and galas and talking to people…going to the big city and schmoozing with people. Now, I'm not shy, but I don't do well in large groups of young people who are into one thing that I'm not into at all.
Why? Because the things I know a lot about they don't know and they don't give a damn. Now, if I would've been able to tell them something they didn't know about the latest style in…I dunno, somewhere in Europe where I cared more about their economy than their fashion? Then I would've been the belle of the ball.
Except I didn't know those things and I still don't and I don't give a damn. I wanted to spend time with HER, not with her ultra-cool friends who had more piercings than a teen grunge rock band.
But I was…infatuated. Entranced. So completely fixated on her that…I didn't care. And when it was just me and her, everything was fine.
At first. Then she started getting angry with me because I didn't go to the big parties with her - why? To get drunk illegally?
Then I went to Duke and she came with me because I wanted her to and she hated it. She HATED Carolina, she wanted to go back to New York where "The REAL parties" were.
So at the end of law school we went to New York City because that's where she wanted and that's where she knew people and could get a job doing what she loved…So we didn't go to DC and I didn't go into politics like I wanted, I got a job at a law firm so I wouldn't have to leave the woman I was in love with.
And after like 8 years of being together, I proposed. Then Josh came by and, for once, it was MY dream that was coming around. FINALLY. What *I* wanted to do. Not what she wanted - what *I* wanted. I wanted to work in politics.
I wasn't about to demand that she drop everything…so I said I'd go and come back when I could.
She got mad. She said I was walking out on her 'cause no more would she have her beautiful beau to hang on her arm when she went to all the hot clubs in town.
So by the time I got back to New York…she was leaving me.
And it still hurts to look at her, across the room…to have her ask me questions about what I'm doing, to imply that what I do isn't any harder than a trained monkey could do.
Why? Why after all these years is it still painful?
I guess it's 'cause I'm still entranced by her.
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