Unbearable Lightness of Being

COINCIDENCE

Was it a coincidence that Stephan dumped me on April Fool's Day? One could argue that it represents his complete and utter foolishness at letting me go, or the cruel joke of his dumping me rather than the other way around, but I argue that dumping me was probably wise. It was at least honest. If a person does not feel love, there is no amount of waiting, hoping, or trying that is going to make the heart suddenly say "whoops, I had it all wrong!" and plunge into the affair like the diver who is suddenly sick of dawdling on the diving board above a chilly pool.

But was it a coincidence that Stephan dumped me at the beginning of April, when the weather is starting to turn truly beautiful? Was it a coincidence that he dumped me exactly at the time Artichoke Haircut needed me most, and I had countless activities to distract me? Was it a coincidence that he decided to leave right when I was surrounded, completely, by my friends, who have nothing but good advice and good laughs to offer me? Admittedly, I am now living far away from my family and network of hometown friends, but I feel more connected to my parents and my best friend in the world, Patrick, than I did living unhappily in a town that couldn't contain me. My absence has made their hearts grow fonder, and I am more poised now to reconnect to old friends than ever. In fact, I have.

So was it a coincidence that Stephan dumped me right when all the handsome bulldog owners on my block have started taking their pets on long, leisurely walks in the morning when I'm starting to crave a Milk and Honey lemon poppy seed muffin? The narrator in Milan Kundera's book The Unbearable Lightness of Being argues that an event is "in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater number of fortuities necessary to bring it about." Like when I was eighteen, and it was the day after Christmas, and I had gone to the Pour House to meet Patrick. I had been a nervous wreck all week because I knew Colin, my ex-boyfriend, would be returning from Arizona to visit his family for the holiday. I do not remember if I had the expectation of meeting up with him, or if we had been in contact much since the breakup, but I was intoxicated with anticipation at his being in the same state, the same city, as me.

So I went to visit Patrick, who was talking to his girlfriend at the time, and couldn't spare the few minutes to hear me gripe about my anxiety. I asked him to come with me to Old Navy and spend part of the gift card I had received for Christmas. He agreed, but kept stalling, talking to his girlfriend. I waited maybe the span of two minutes before giving him up as completely distracted, and decided to go to Old Navy by myself.

Now, if I had waited the full however-long-it-takes for Patrick to set a date with his girlfriend, I would have arrived at the Old Navy parking lot later than I did. If my parents had not given me an Old Navy gift card in my stocking, I would not have had the pretense for the adventure in the first place. If the shopping center planners had not decided to put an AT&T store next to Old Navy, and if Colin's parents had not decided to get him a reliable cell phone, and if Colin had changed one aspect of his cell phone plan, he would not have been exiting AT&T at the exact moment I was walking into Old Navy; I never would have heard his "huck, huck" chuckle of disbelief at seeing me, the sound I will always remember and associate with coincidence; I never would have had the courage to contact him, and we never would have reconnected for that great New Year's Eve when I really thought, truly, that we could make a relationship work.

That could have been one of the most beautiful events of my life. Time passes, things fall apart, people change, and I have gone my direction, but I will always treasure that moment of fortuitousness as Fate speaking directly to me, if only for a moment.


COMPLETELY

I loved Stephan completely. I gave everything I could to our relationship. I diminished myself and my needs in order to fit a person who didn't fit me. The "I" that I became was not completely myself, then. The "I" that loved Stephan was the diminished and effaced "I" that accepted shitty Valentine's Day cards and nobody to kiss on New Year's Eve except Melissa, because he was too busy getting drunk in Fells Point or wherever he was that was not the bar I where I was working. But the "I" that loved him was completely satisfied. The half-me that loved him didn't need as much affection or attention or companionship as the full-me requires. I've learned now that the overture of the melody of my life is complex, and a tinny little blip on the radar would never suffice in my life for love. When I love next, it will be with conviction, true balls-to-the-wall, vertiginous devotion to....being my full self. Then no matter what the relationship brings, I will be completely complete.