Today

For some odd reason, Valentine's Day always reminds me of this one place...

(MP, I'll have to tell you the story)

On Giving Up

This song just makes me smile. And I think I'll dance to it at my wedding.

But for now...

It's been two weeks since I boarded a flight from Budapest back to Paris. In these two weeks, I have talked to the Hungarian all of two times (maybe three).

To be fair, I haven't attempted much more than that. When I see him online, I know full well that he is sitting at his dining table desk, brow furrowed, guzzling green tea, typing up a Roma integration policy paper or working on the blog for his political campaign. Mr. Candidate, I call him.

Do I wish that he think of me as much as I think of him? Of course. That he drop what he's doing and give me his full attention? Obviously. Yet, admittedly, part of what makes him so attractive is his intelligence, his determination, his need to constantly challenge himself.

He was still up at 2:00 am his time last night. I know he likes to get to bed around midnight, and so I sent him a "you shall overcome!" message. The phrase is a little inside joke of ours - one that I said during some crisis that stuck.

This morning I woke up to a smiley face from him. For now, that's all I need.

"Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here." --M.W.

One of my parents’ favorite stories to tell about me is from when I was five years old. We were at Disney World and while I wasn’t tall enough to ride anything but the Dumbo ride and the teacups, I was big enough to go into the Haunted House. Timid at first, I waited in line holding my mother’s hand, and admiring the size of what was sure to be a castle. Tall, pointed spires, flags waving… castle, right?

When we finally arrived at the giant black door, the guard greeted us with a simple, but ghoulish, hello. I froze, screamed in terror, and burst into tears. The actor playing the guard apparently knelt down to try and comfort me and convince me he wasn’t that scary after all, but I was scarred. No amount of prodding after that moment could convince me to go into that haunted house. My mother was forced to wait on the bench outside the ride with me until my brother and father were through. It was the moment I became afraid of everything.

A few months later I had to drop out of gymnastics because I was afraid to flip over the uneven bars. One night the babysitter had to run upstairs to check on me because I let out a shriek of terror in the middle of the night: I had used a flashlight to guide my way to the bathroom, and when the globular, human-head-shaped shadow of the banister projected onto the wall, I thought I was a goner. I was terrified of waves in the ocean, and famous in my pediatrician’s office for earth-shattering screams when approached with the finger prick blood test. I couldn’t catch even a glimpse of a scary movie without being traumatized for weeks with nightmares. I fainted at the slightest hint of my own blood and once passed out cold in summer camp because I thought I had cut my finger on a piano, but in fact had not.

My fears were crippling. In the bigger picture, I have always been afraid of the unknown and in a way, I still am. I find myself crippled with the fear of getting hurt in a different way. My heart has been broken before. It’s a pain I know well. But somehow I’m afraid that the next time someone breaks it, it’ll be a pain like nothing I could’ve ever anticipated. It’s as if I’m staring down the castle door all over again.

I Know You Haven't Made Your Mind Up Yet...

The Nicest Thing, Hungarian Version*

*Even though you could basically substitute the Hungarian for the LDC in Lauren E's last post and get the gist of my three days in Budapest...

He looked at me, smiled, shook his head, and kissed me. "You just bumped into my life again." Within minutes of entering his apartment, I was hanging his damp laundry on a drying rack. I separated his striped sweaters and socks and laughed to myself: So this is how it could be.

I laid on the couch and read my book, while he sat at his dining table work desk answering incessant emails and phone calls: So this is how it could be.

He gave me some radishes and peppers to wash while he sliced fresh bread. We ate our dinner of toast and brie from high stools at the kitchen counter, drank red wine with his friend that dropped by, and then watched a movie in bed: So this is how it could be.

As we parted for the day, he worried that I would not find my way back to the apartment, making me repeat the name of the square where all the buses and trams met. Later on, confusing me for a local, an elderly woman asked me for directions: So this is how it could be.

We split an apple tart and a chocolate cake. With a squinty smile, he ordered another slice of chocolate cake from the waitress: So this is how it could be.

He fell asleep in my lap: So this is how it could be.

His grandmother made us a traditional Hungarian lunch. Even though she didn't eat, the two of us drank coffee in her living room. He stole my cup twice for a sip: So this is how it could be.

I bought pastries from one of the fancier bakeries in the city. We made a mess of ourselves gobbling them up on the metro: So this is how it could be.

We ran our fastest, holding hands, to catch the last bus of the night: So this is how it could be.

At the train station, we kissed each other goodbye. I sat in my seat and looked out at him looking at me. As the train pulled away, he kissed his hand and I kissed mine: So this is how it's going to be.

The Nicest Thing

It was easy. The entire weekend felt so seamless and simple. I was a ball of nerves when I arrived in Seattle on Thursday night, as if frayed wires were trying to send out signals inside my limbs. When the LDC walked into the bar where M. and I were drinking I wanted to leap across the room at him. He’s more attractive every time I see him.

The next three days were a barrage of knee squeezing, hand holding, and cuddling. We didn’t spend every minute together but at times it felt like this is what it would be like to live here and be with him. He’d pick me up and take me out, his friends would hug me hello, we’d automatically be each other’s beer pong partners. I found myself falling in love with the little things I wanted from him. I was so tired of maintaining feelings based on texts and phone calls. This real life was so much happier.

Sunday night came faster than I could’ve ever imagined, and we said goodbye outside M.’s house in the dark. I didn’t get to say any of the things I wanted to say, all the things I had prepared. I want to know what you think of us, what you think of this thing we’re doing here. Does it worry you? Does it stress you out? What do we do about it? Instead I let his fingers find my belt loops and focused on the feeling of skin on skin.

“I hope you had a good weekend,” he said. I assured him that I did.
“It’s nice spending time with you like a real person,” I answered.
“Yeah, we should do it again sometime.” What if I moved here? Or even to San Francisco? Would we be together then? He kissed me. Twice. And then he got in his car and drove away.

I kept feeling the tears threaten, the pressure on my face, all the way to the airport and the entire flight home. I held it together through my shower and makeup. And then Kate Nash came on Pandora and her sweet little voice spoke the words in my head.

I wish that without me your heart would break
I wish that without me you’d be spending the rest of your nights awake
I wish that without me you couldn't eat
I wish I was the last thing on your mind before you went to sleep

Look, all I know is that you’re the nicest thing I’ve ever seen
And I wish that we could see if we could be something