Man proposes.
That's all that a man can do.
God (and/or the man's intended woman) disposes if they so choose.
And once that happens, no matter how devastating it is, no matter how distraught you are, the smart thing to do is get up, pick your jaw off the floor and move on. Even if that means moving on through the pouring rain and sticky mud without an umbrella or rain-boots.
So that's what I did. Mechanically. Mindlessly trudging on. Putting one foot in front of the other in the general direction of my home.
As I walked, the catastrophic scene which I had left behind kept auto-replaying in my head in a dull, lifeless manner. Almost like a 1920s hollywood movie reel before color and sound in film had been invented.
I had waxed poetic, I had been charming, I had been intelligent. I had spoken with such passion that the impending rains had paused to let me speak my piece.
I mean, that night, Shakespeare had NOTHING ON ME!
*insert Denzel voice*
I was just this skinny little cross-eyed kid, but as much as I could do about my appearance, I had done.
I. Had. Done. All. I. Could.
But she had not said yes.
To be fair, she had not said no either.
But then, she had not said yes.
And "maybe" is just a "No" carrying an extra syllable.
An unnecessary use of time and energy.
I knew that if she felt the slightest fraction of what I felt, my speech that night would have provoked an overwhelming yes.
But my flow was so impeccable, so earnest, that I changed what would have been a "No" to a "please can we talk about this later? I need to think."
And I understood what that REALLY meant.
Hence, I was walking home.
Alone.
Dripping wet.
The rains bellowed and bawled. The atmosphere outside being a direct reflection of the tortuous turmoil that was occurring on my insides.
And the cold. My fingers started to numb up. I stuck them stiffly into my jeans pocket.
Same difference.
They were just as wet inside my pockets as out. Just as stiff, just as cold.
I didn't perform any of the heat-seeking behavior that we were taught was only natural in 2nd year Physiology.
No shivering, no goosebumps, no hunching of my shoulders.
No thermogenesis.
I didn't fight the cold. I welcomed it.
I finally understood what it must have been like to be Otzi, the similaun man. Pierced in his heart by an arrow in 3300 BC, he didn't get to die a normal death, be mourned and buried. He didn't get to decompose into compost, coal or crude oil in order to serve in whatever capacity it is that his carbon based peers are serving in the present day.
No. No sooner had his heart been pierced by a poisoned arrow had he fallen into a glacier of ice ending up being preserved for 50 full centuries, pierced chest and all.
FIFTY complete CENTURIES!
Dead, but preserved.
In his complete life-like form.
When he was discovered at the Otztal Alps in 1991, the german tourists who found him assumed he was a hiker who just fell off the mountain sometime within the previous week, totally unaware that he had actually died 5000 years before!
And I felt exactly as he must have.
Though my heart was shattered, the cold kept it in place: An external icy pericardium preventing me from falling to pieces, sinus rhythm unaffected by the overload of stress hormones and excessive firing of my sympathetic nervous system.
Calm amidst the storm.
For all intents and purposes, anyone who looked at me would not realize what had happened, nay, what was happening inside my head.
Hell, no one who saw me would actually believe that it was even raining!
Just another regular guy taking a leisurely stroll in the middle of the night, in the midst of the pouring rain with just a t-shirt and jeans on, and no umbrella.
No big deal.
[I'm only realizing right now, at this very moment as I write, that I had been setting myself up for failure with her, and with most of the people I end up really liking.
Too much "honest" talk.
I'm realizing at this very instant, that nobody got time for that $#!+...
I mean, my past is so shitty that if I let myself share, if I let anyone see the pain I used to keep behind my forehead, I would lose them.
Because we all want a fantasy, its only natural. We all want someone who we think is better than we are.
And when you open up your heart to let them see who you really are behind the face and the facade, you only reveal to them that you're as human as they are.
And you lose your appeal.
Then you lose your girl.]
Oh Well.
That night, after doing all I could, I did all I could do next.
I just walked slowly back to my crib, heart firmly frozen in place:
Broken, but functional.
Circulation-wise, at least.
As I got in, Jenson offered me hot cocoa but I simply ignored him, put on my Avril Lavigne, Vanessa Carlton and Ashley simpson playlist, and went to sleep.
Of what use is warm feelings, anyway?
Keep it in the music.
It's Y'boy
L.A.C.E.
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